The Pilgrim's Shell or Fergan the Quarryman Part 22

"Oh, my friends!" said Fergan with emotion, "do you hear it sound for the first time from the belfry of our Commune? Do you hear it? To-day it summons us to a feast; to-morrow it will call us to the meeting of the council where we attend to the business of the city; some day it will give us the signal for battle. A belfry of the people! Your voice of bronze, at last awakening ancient Gaul from her slumber, has given the signal for the insurrection of the Communes!"

While the quarryman was speaking, all the bells of the churches of Laon began to chime in with the peals of the belfry. The deafening clangor soon dominated and completely drowned the isolated tinkling of the communal bell. This rivalry of bell-ringing was no accident, nor yet a token of sympathy. It was an affront, premeditated by the bishop and his partisans. They realized the patriotic importance that the communiers of Laon attached to the inauguration of the symbol of their emanc.i.p.ation, and decided to mar the festivity.

"Oh, those friars! Always spiteful and hypocritic until the day when they deem themselves strong enough to be merciless!" exclaimed Colombaik. "Have your way, ye black-gowns! Ring at your loudest! The canting bells of your churches shall not silence our communal belfry!

Your bells ring mankind to servitude, to imbecility, to the renunciation of their dignity; the belfry gathers them to fulfil their civic duties and to defend freedom! Come, father, come! The bourgeois militia must by this time be a.s.sembled around the pillars of the market-place. You are constable and I a captain-of-ten. Let's start. Do not let us be waited for. Liberty or death!"

CHAPTER III.

EPISCOPALS AND COMMUNIERS.

Fergan put on his casque, and presently giving his arm to Joan the Hunchback, as Colombaik gave his to Martine, and Quatre-Mains to his wife Simonne, the three couples sallied forth from Colombaik's tannery, followed by his apprentices, who, likewise were members of the Commune.

The rivalry of the bells continued undiminished. At intervals the bells of the churches intermitted their clangor, no doubt in the hope of having silenced the belfry. Its sonorous and regular peal proceeded, however, unchecked, and the clerical clangor was renewed with redoubled fury. The incident, puerile in seeming, but serious at bottom, produced a deep resentment towards the party of the n.o.bles. It was a long distance from the tannery of Colombaik to the market-place, the rendezvous of the bourgeois militia. Large crowds blocked the streets, moving towards the communal Town Hall, that had been three years building and was recently finished. Only the casting and hanging of the bell in its campanile had r.e.t.a.r.ded the inauguration of the monument so dear to the townsmen. More than once did Joan turn back to look, not without uneasiness, in the direction where her son followed with Martine, together with Quatre-Mains and Simonne. Joan's apprehensions were well founded. A large number of the domestics of the n.o.ble and clerical households were dispersed among the crowd, and from time to time hurled some vulgar insult at the communiers, upon which they would immediately take to their heels. Knights, clad in full armor, crossed and re-crossed the streets, their fists upon their hips, their visors up, and casting disdainful and defiant looks upon the people. These provocations increased particularly in the vicinity of the rendezvous of the militia, at the head of which, and armed as if for battle, the Mayor of Laon and his twelve Councilmen were to march in procession to the Town Hall in order to inaugurate by a solemn session the meeting of these magistrates, held until then at the house of John Molrain, the Mayor.

The market-place of Laon, like that of all the cities of Gaul, consisted of large stalls, where, on Sat.u.r.days, occasionally also on other days of the week, the merchants, leaving their everyday shops, exposed their products for sale. Outsiders and the suburb population, who drew their supplies from Laon, thus found at one place all that they might want.

But on that day the market served as the gathering place for a goodly number of bourgeois and artisans, who had armed themselves to join the procession and impart to it an imposing appearance. In case of war, every communier was obliged to furnish himself with a pike and an axe, or club, at the first call from the belfry, and hasten to the rendezvous. As a rule the crowd seemed indifferent to the insolent gibes and provocations of the episcopals. The communiers, at least a majority of them, felt themselves strong enough to despise the challenges to riot. A few, however, yielded to a certain sense of fear for the iron-clad n.o.bles, who were accustomed to the use of weapons, and with whom the Laonese, who owed their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt to a contract and not to an insurrection, had not yet had occasion to measure themselves.

Finally and moreover, hardly freed from their rude and base servitude, many of the townsmen still preserved, involuntarily, a certain habit, if not of respect, yet of dread for people whose cruel oppression they had so long been subject to. Shortly, the captains-of-tens, commanding squads of tens, and the captains-of-hundreds, commanding companies of hundreds, all under the command of Fergan, who had been chosen constable, or chief of the militia, drew up their ranks along the stalls of the market-place. Colombaik was a captain-of-ten, his body was complete except for one lad called Bertrand, the son of Bernard des Bruyeres, a rich bourgeois who, three years previous, was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the cathedral by Gaudry, bishop of Laon.

"Probably," said Colombaik, "poor Bertrand will not join us to-day. This is a feast day, and there are no more feast days for the poor fellow since the murder of his father."

"Yet there comes Bertrand!" cried out one of the militiamen, pointing at a young man, who, pale, frail and sickly-looking, of a timid and kind appearance, wearing a steel casque and armed with a heavy axe that seemed to weigh down his shoulder, was approaching from a distance.

"Poor Bertrand!" the militiaman added, "so feeble and wretched! He is excused for not having avenged the death of his father upon our accursed bishop!" Cordially received by his companions, Bertrand answered their solicitous inquiries with some embarra.s.sment, and silently took his place in the ranks. The Mayor arrived soon after, accompanied by his Councilmen, some unarmed, others armed like Ancel Quatre-Mains, who joined them there. John Molrain, the Mayor, a man in the vigor of life and of a countenance at once calm and energetic, marched at the head of the magistrates of the city. One of them carried the banner of the Commune of Laon,--if the steeple of the people's belfries rose daringly in the teeth of the feudal donjons, the communal banners floated no less high than those of the seigneurs. The banner of Laon represented two embattled towers, between which rose a naked sword. The emblem signified: "Our city, fortified by walls, will know how to defend itself by arms against its enemies." Another Councilman carried in a vermillion casket, lying upon a silk cushion, the communal charter, signed by the bishop and the n.o.bles, and confirmed by the signature of Louis the l.u.s.ty, King of the French. Finally, a third carried, also upon a cushion, the silver seal of the Commune, which served to attest the acts and decrees rendered by the town Council in the name of the Commune.

This large medal, cast in ba.s.s relief, represented the Mayor, who, clad in his long robe and with his right hand pointing heavenward, seemed to be taking the oath, while his left hand held a sword with the point resting on his breast. "I, Mayor of Laon, have sworn to maintain and defend the franchises of the Commune: sooner die than betray my trust!"--such was the patriotic meaning of the communal seal, in short, "Liberty or death!"

When the city magistrate arrived, Fergan, who was issuing his last orders to the militiamen, saw a priest, the archdeacon of the cathedral, called Anselm, step out of the crowd. Fergan held the tonsured fraternity in singular aversion, yet greatly esteemed Anselm, a true disciple of Christ. "Fergan," whispered the archdeacon to the quarryman, "press your friends to redouble their calmness and their prudence, I conjure you. Prevent them from replying to any provocation. I can tell you no more. The time is short. I must proceed to the episcopal palace."

Saying this, Anselm disappeared in the crowd. The advice of the archdeacon, a wise man, beloved by all, and, due to his office, in a position to be reliably informed, struck Fergan. He no longer doubted there was a conspiracy, secretly hatched by the episcopals against the Commune. Profoundly preoccupied, he placed himself at the head of his militiamen, in order to escort the Mayor and the Councilmen to the Town Hall. The obscure names of this magistracy, taken from Fergan's family archives, and over which he inscribed the exhortation: "May they be ever dear to your memory, ye sons of Joel!" were: John Molrain, Mayor.

Councilmen: Foulque, the son of Bomar; Raoul Cabricoin; Ancel, son-in-law of Labert; Haymon; Payen-Seille; Robert; Remy-But; Menard-Dray, Raimbaut the sausagemaker; Payen-Oste-Loup; Ancel Quatre-Mains, and Raoul-Gastines.

The procession started amidst the joyful acclamations of the crowd, who enthusiastically shouted their rallying-cry: "Commune! Commune!"

swollen by the sonorous peals from the belfry, the clerical clangor having finally ceased, due to the apprehension of the episcopals, lest the prolonged ringing of their bells was taken for their partic.i.p.ation in the festivities. Before arriving at the place where the Town Hall stood, the procession defiled before the house of the knight of Haut-Pourcin, a large and fortified dwelling, flanked with two thick towers, that were joined by an embattled terrace, projecting above the door. Upon this species of balcony were gathered a large number of knights, clergymen, n.o.bles and elegantly bedezined ladies, some young and handsome, others old and ugly. Among the least old of the latter and yet ugliest of all, the dame of Haut-Pourcin was conspicuous. A gaunt virago of about fifty, bony, of parchment skin, and of arrogant mien, she wore a violet cloak with gold b.u.t.tons and a cape of peac.o.c.k feathers; on her grizzly hair she had coquettishly fastened a chaplet of lillies of the valley in full bloom, like a shepherdess. The whiteness of her floral ornaments heightened the yellowish color of the dame's bilious complexion, a complexion, however, that was less yellowish than her long teeth. At sight of the procession, headed by the Mayor and his Councilmen, she turned to those near her, crying out in a sour and piercing voice that was distinctly heard by the communiers, the terrace lying only twelve or fifteen feet above the street: "Mesdames and messeigneurs, have you ever seen a pack of a.s.ses tramping to their mill with a more triumphant air?"

"Oh!" answered one of the knights aloud, laughing and pointing with his switch at the Mayor, John Molrain: "And look at the master-a.s.s that leads the rest! How he prances under his furred saddle-cloth!"

"Pity his headgear conceals his long ears from us!"

"Blood of Christ! What a shame to see these Gallic clowns, made slaves by our ancestors, now carrying swords like us of the n.o.bility!" put in the seigneur of Haut-Pourcin. "And we, the descendants of the conquerors; we knights tolerate such villainy!"

"Halloa, there, Quatre-Mains the baker!" yelled the dame of Haut-Pourcin in a squeaky voice, leaning over the railing of the terrace, "Seigneur Councilman, trotting cuckolded and content while armed for war! The last bread that my butler fetched from your shop was not baked enough, and I suspect you of having cheated me in the weight!"

"Halloa, there, Remy the currier!" added a bulky canon attached to the cathedral, "Seigneur Councilman, who are there loitering about, administering the affairs of the city, why are you not at work on the mule saddle that I ordered?"

"Oh, messeigneurs, there comes the cavalry!" exclaimed a young woman laughing and smelling at a nosegay of sweet marjorams. "Look at the swagger of the vagabond who commands his braves, would you not think he was about to hew down everything in sight?"

"Oh, messeigneurs, look at that hero yonder! Oppressed by his visor, he is carrying his casque front side back and his sabre on his shoulder!"

"And that one, who holds his sword like a wax-taper! Guess he is a Pope's soldier!"

"And yonder goes one who came near putting out the eye of his neighbor with his pike! What a ridiculous set! What silly people!"

"For heaven's sake, messeigneurs, are you not frozen with terror at the thought that, some day, we may find ourselves face to face and lance in hand, with this bourgeoisie, this formidable rabble-rout of shaven fronts, big paunches and flat feet?"

At first, patiently endured by the communiers, these insults, accentuated with outbursts of contemptuous laughter and disdainful gestures, ended, nevertheless, by irritating the more impetuous. Dull murmurs rose from the crowd; the procession halted, despite the entreaties of Fergan, who urged upon the militiamen the silence of contempt. Some threatened the episcopals with their fists, others with their arms; but their tormentors redoubled their gibes at the sight of such signs of irritation. Suddenly John Molrain, the Mayor, rushing to one of the stone benches, common near the doors of dwellings to a.s.sist riders in mounting their horses, jumped upon it, ordered silence, and addressed the crowd in a sonorous voice, that reached the ears of the episcopals:

"Brothers, and all those who have taken the oath of the Commune of Laon, make no reply to impotent insults! Let any dare attack the Commune with deeds and not with words, then will we, your Mayor and Councilmen, summon the offender before our tribunal, and justice will be enforced upon our enemies--prompt and energetic justice! Until then, let us answer all provocation with disdain. The resolute man, strong in his rights, despises insults. At the hour of judgment, he condemns and punishes!"

These wise and measured words quieted the excitement of the crowd, but they also reached the ears of the n.o.bles, a.s.sembled on the terrace of the house of the seigneur of Haut-Pourcin, and added fuel to their rage.

They menaced the communiers with their canes and swords, while redoubling their gibes. "Your swords are not long enough, they do not reach us!" Colombaik cried out to them, while pa.s.sing under the balcony with his division of the militia. "Come down into the street! We shall then see whether iron is heavier in the hands of a bourgeois than in that of a knight!"

This challenge was answered by the episcopals with fresh insults.

However, they dared not descend into the street, where they would have been seized and taken prisoners by the militia. For a moment delayed on its march, the procession resumed its way and arrived at the place of the Town Hall, a monument dear to the artisans and other townsmen.

The edifice, a s.p.a.cious and handsome structure recently erected, formed an oblong square. Elaborate sculptures ornamented its facade and the lintels of its numerous windows and architrave, which consisted of three ogive arcades sustained by elegant sheaves of stone columns. But the portion of the edifice upon which particular care had been devoted, both in point of construction and ornamentation, was the tower of the belfry and the campanile, where hung the bell. This tower, proudly rising above the roof, stood out in full view. From tier to tier a slender sheet supported rounds of small columns surmounted with ogives chiseled in trefoil, so that across the network of chiseled stone the spiral of the staircase was visible that led up to the campanile, veiled in white cloth up to the moment when the procession issued upon the place. When the covering dropped off and the campanile stood unveiled, a shout of admiration and patriotic enthusiasm rose from all b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Nothing so airy as that campanile, looking like a gilded cage of iron, whose outlines stood out against the blue of the sky like a lace-work of gold, glittering in the rays of the sun. Above the dazzling dome, the communal banner floated in the spring breeze of that beautiful April morning. The enthusiastic cheers of the crowds rose again and again, and the north wind must have carried to the ears of the episcopals the cry, a thousand times repeated:

"Commune! Commune! Long live the Commune!"

CHAPTER IV.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL SEIGNIORY OF GAUDRY.

The episcopal palace of Laon rose close to the cathedral. Thick walls, fortified with two heavy towers, between which stood the gate, surrounded the dwelling from all sides. From the view-point of the benign morality of Jesus--the friend of the poor and the afflicted--nothing was less episcopal than the interior of this palace.

One would imagine himself in the fortified castle of some feudal seigneur, a broiler and hunter. The singular contrast between the place and the character that it should have presented, left a painful impression upon all upright hearts, and such, indeed, was the feeling experienced by archdeacon Anselm, when, shortly after engaging Fergan to urge upon the communiers indifference towards the provocations of the episcopals, that disciple of Christ crossed the yard of the bishop. Here falconers were engaged washing and preparing the raw meat destined for the falcons, or cleaned up their roosts; yonder, the huntsmen, their horns on their guard-chains and whip in hand, led for pastime a pack of large dogs of Picardy, prized so highly by hunters. Further away, serfs of the episcopal domain were being drilled in the handling of arms under the command of one of the bishop's equerries. This last circ.u.mstance struck the archdeacon with amazement, and increased his fears for the peace of the city. The venerable man was overcome with sadness and two large tears dropped from his eyes.

Although an a.s.sociate of clergymen, Anselm was a man of great kindness of heart, pure, disinterested, austere and of rare learning. He was called "doctor of doctors." He declined the episcopacy several times, fearing, it was said, to seem to censure, by the Christian meekness of his nature and the chast.i.ty of his habits, the conduct of most of the bishops of Gaul. His face, at once pale and serene, his hair thinned by study, imparted a distinguished aspect to his person, tempered by the kindliness of his eyes. Modestly dressed in his black gown, Anselm was slowly crossing the yard of the abbey, contrasting their noisy tumult with the repose of his own studious retreat, when he saw, approaching him from a distance, a negro of giant stature, dressed in Oriental garb, his head covered with a red turban. This African slave, of mean and savage physiognomy, was named John since his baptism. He was, many years before, given as a present to Bishop Gaudry by a Crusader seigneur, returned from the Holy Land. By little and little Black John grew to be the favorite of his new master, the intermediary of the latter's debaucheries, or the instrument of his cruelties, before the establishment of the Commune. Since that transformation, the persons and property of the communiers had become safe. If an injury was done to either, the Commune obtained or itself enforced justice against the wrong-doer. Accordingly, the bishop and the n.o.bles had been forced to renounce their habits of violence and rapine.

When the archdeacon saw Black John, the latter was descending a staircase that ended in a door, wrought under a vault closed with a grating, that separated the first two walks of a green reserved for the bishop. A woman, wrapped in a mantle that completely concealed her face, accompanied the slave. Anselm could not restrain a gesture of indignation. Knowing the dwellers of the palace, and aware that the staircase under the vault led to the apartments of the bishop, he had no doubt that the veiled woman, leaving the palace at so early an hour and under the guide of Black John, the bishop's regular procurer, had pa.s.sed the night with the prelate. Blushing with chaste confusion, the archdeacon had turned his head away with disgust at the moment when, having opened the grated gate, the slave and his female companion pa.s.sed close by him. Stepping into the vault, the archdeacon entered the green,--a s.p.a.cious enclosure, that, swarded and planted with trees, spread before the windows of the private apartments of Bishop Gaudry.

This man, a Norman by extraction and descended from the pirates of old Rolf, after having fought in the ranks of William the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, when he conquered England, was later, in 1106, promoted to the bishopric of Laon. Cruel and debauched, covetous and prodigal, Gaudry was, besides all, a pa.s.sionate huntsman. Still agile and vigorous, although beyond the prime of life, he was at that moment trying a young horse and breaking it in to step on the green that Anselm had just entered. In order to feel more at ease, the bishop had taken off his long morning robe, lined with fur, and kept on nothing but his sock-pointed shoes, his hose and a short jacket of flexible material. Bare-headed, his gray hair to the wind, still an able and bold cavalier, and riding bare-back the young stallion, that had for the first time come from the paddock, Gaudry was pressing his nervy knees against the flanks of the mettlesome animal, resisting its boundings and kicking, and forcing it to run in a circle over the sward of the green. The bishop's equerry applauded with voice and gesture the skill of his master, while a serf of robust frame and gallows-bird countenance followed the riding lesson with cunning eyes. This serf, who belonged to the abbey of St. Vincent, a fief of the bishopric, was named Thiegaud. The fellow--originally charged with the collection of toll over a bridge near the city, a dependency of the castellan Enguerrand de Coucy, one of the most ferocious feudal tyrants of Picardy who was dreaded for his audacity and cruelty--had been guilty of a number of extortions and even murders. Gaudry, struck by the resolute character of the scamp, demanded him from the castellan of Coucy in exchange for another serf, and charged him with the collection of the arbitrary taxes that he imposed upon his va.s.sals, a charge that Thiegaud filled with remorseless severity. Thus the bishop treated the serf with great familiarity, habitually called him his "friend Ysengrin"--the wolf's companion--and, at a pinch, used him for a go-between in his debaucheries, not, however, without awakening the vindictive jealousy of Black John, who felt secretly enraged at the sight of another than himself in the secret confidence of his master.

Gaudry, while riding around the green, saw the archdeacon, made the stallion suddenly face about, and after a few more boundings the impetuous animal brought the bishop close to Anselm. Lightly jumping off, the bishop said to his equerry, throwing the bridle over to him: "I'll keep the horse; take him to my stables; he will be matchless in the hunt of stags and boars!"

"If you keep the horse, seigneur bishop," answered Thiegaud, "give me a hundred and twenty silver sous. That's the price they demand."

"That's all right. What's the hurry?" rejoined the bishop, and turning to his equerry: "Gerhard, take the horse to the stable."

"Not so," said Thiegaud, "the tenant-farmer is waiting at the gate of the palace. He has been ordered to take the horse back or receive its price in money. It is the orders of the owner of the stallion."

"The impudent scamp who gave that order deserves to receive as many lashes as his horse has hairs in his tail!" cried out the bishop. "Have I not, as a matter of right, six months' credit in my own seigniory?"

"No," coolly answered Anselm, "that seignioral right has been abolished since the city of Laon is a free Commune. Never forget the difference between the present and the past. The seignioral rights are abolished."

"I am reminded of that but too often!" answered the bishop with concentrated vexation. "However that may be, Gerhard, obey my orders and take the horse to the stable."