The Pilgrim's Shell or Fergan the Quarryman Part 7

"But what arguments will these emissaries advance in order to rouse the ma.s.ses to these insensate migrations?"

"I shall answer that question presently. But let me remind you of the princ.i.p.al motives of the church to drive the people to the Crusades; to habituate Catholic Europe to rise at the voice of the Pope for the extermination of heretics; to switch off to Palestine a large number of the seigneurs who are contending with the Church for the goods of the earth and the dominion of the people,--to get rid of one's enemies."

"The idea is good, profound, politic. I can well see the object that the Pope has in view."

"Let me, furthermore, call your attention to a fact that renders necessary a large migration of the common people to the Holy Land. In Gaul, despite the private wars of the seigneurs and the sufferings of this century, the population of the serfs has multiplied to an extraordinary degree during the last fifty years."

"That is so. The serf population, decimated by the famines that reigned from 1000 to 1034, immediately began to recover with the years of plenty that followed upon those of dearth."

"Aided, above all, by the action of the Church when, desirous of repeopling her domains, stripped of its agricultural serfs, she caused the 'Armistice of G.o.d' to be proclaimed, interdicting the seigneurs and the bishops from levying war during three days of each week under penalty of excommunication."

"That plebeian increase brought on the formidable revolts of the serfs of Normandy and Brittany, when doggerels were sung containing strophes of unheard-of audacity, as you may judge from this one:

Why allow we ourselves to be oppressed?

Are we not human like the seigneurs?

Have we not, as they, body and limbs?

Is not our heart as large as theirs?

Are we not one hundred serfs to a single knight?

Let's then be up striking with our pitchforks and our scythes!

For lack of arms, take the stones the roads are strewn with!

'Death to the friars!'

"And that's the truth, Jeronimo! Those songs of revolt gave the signal to terrible insurrections in Normandy and Brittany. But two or three millions of the rebels had their eyes put out, their feet and hands chopped off, and the revolt was stamped out. Those wicked people must be exterminated."

"In order to conjure away the return of similar uprisings, it is necessary to lead abroad the plebeian increase. The plebs grows threatening by reason of its numbers and the force that numbers carry with them. In order to weaken it, it will be enough to make it depart on the Crusade across Europe."

"Explain to me how the Crusades are expected to bring about the results that you consider needful, and that the exhortations of the papal emissaries are to invoke."

"Is it not evident that, for every thousand serfs who will leave Gaul to fight in Palestine, barely a hundred will arrive as far as Jerusalem?

Those wretches, departing penniless, in rags, without provisions, carrying wife and children in their train, ravaging the regions they traverse--Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Bulgaria, the countries of the Danube--because, in the course of so long a voyage, such mult.i.tudes cannot live without pillage along the route, three-fourths of them will have been exterminated by the inhabitants of the countries that they must cross, or will die of hunger and fatigue before being able to reach Jerusalem. The small number of them that will arrive before the Holy City will be still further decimated by the Saracens. It is safe to say that hardly any of those who leave will return. Thus we shall be rid of this vile and dangerous populace that dares rise against its masters, especially against the Church."

"It remains to be seen, Jeronimo, whether this plebs ma.s.s will be senseless enough to venture upon so distant and perilous a journey."

The monk answered: "Is not the lot of the villeins and the serfs on the lay or ecclesiastical seigniories the most wretched? And, of all the yokes, is not that of the glebe the heaviest, which forbids them to cross the boundaries of their own seigniory. When the Church will say to those myriads of people, chained down to the glebe: 'Go! You are free!

March off to fight the Saracens in Palestine, the country of miracles, where you will gather an immense booty! Take no heed of provisions for the journey, G.o.d will provide! Above all, you will accomplish your eternal salvation!' the serfs will depart in ma.s.s, drawn by the desire to be free, the thirst for booty, the spirit of adventure, and by the pious ardor to deliver the Holy Sepulchre from the defilement of the infidels!"

"Jeronimo," rejoined the Bishop of Nantes, "the craving after freedom, the spirit of adventure, the hope of booty, may, perhaps, drive those wretches to Palestine. But desire to avenge the tomb of the Saviour from the pretended defilement of the infidels, is, meseems, too feeble a motive. We shall fail there."

"When this holy cause, thrice holy and eloquently preached by the Church, is furthermore backed by the thirst for freedom, the hope of booty, the certainty of gaining Paradise, and curiosity regarding the future, that, though unknown, could not be worse than the present, the attraction of the populace for Palestine will become irresistible."

"I grant it. But will the seigneurs consent to have their lands thus depopulated by allowing the serfs to depart for the Crusades?"

"As much as ourselves do the seigneurs dread the revolt of the serfs. In that we two have a common interest. Moreover, that plebs overflow, which it is the part of wisdom to empty out abroad, const.i.tutes, at the highest, only one-third of the serfs. Only that third will depart."

"And who guarantees that many more will not yield to the attraction, that you consider irresistible, and will not go along?"

"This plebs ma.s.s has become craven through the habit of slavery that weighs it down since the Frankish conquest. Only a part of the village and country populations is sufficiently disposed to revolt. It is those very ones who are most impatient of the yoke, the most intelligent, the most venturesome, the most daring, and, consequently, the most dangerous, who will be the first to start for Palestine. Thus shall we be rid of those inciters of rebellion."

"That reasoning is correct."

"Thus only one-third of the rustic plebs will emigrate. Those who remain behind will suffice to cultivate the land. Being fewer to the task, their toil will increase. The ox that is heavily burdened, the a.s.s that is heavily laden, does not kick. The danger of a new revolt will have been conjured off. The Church will resume her preponderance over both the plebs and the seigneurs."

"I admire, Jeronimo, the powerful combinations of the politics of the papacy. But one of the most important results of this policy would be to deliver us from a large number of those accursed seigneurs, always at war against us. Oh, they will not, like the serfs, be driven by the desire to escape a fearful lot, or of enjoying freedom. They, I fear, will remain at home."

"A large number of them are as anxious as their serfs to change their condition. After all, what is the life of these seigneurs? Is it not that of chiefs of brigands? Always at war; always on the watch, fearing to be attacked or surprised by their neighbors; unable but rarely to leave their seigniories except armed to the teeth; often not daring even to go on the hunt in their own domains; forced to entrench themselves in their lairs; these ferocious men are tired of such monotonous life. They will follow the stream."

"I have, indeed, often been struck by the expression of mortal tiredness reflected upon the faces of the seigneurs."

"This will be the language of the friars to these men steeped in crime, brutified almost as much as their own serfs, and all of them nursing at the bottom of their hearts a more or less profound fear of the devil: 'You are smothering in your castles of stone; you here wrangle over the meager spoils of some traveler, or over the barren lands of the Occident--lands peopled with wretches resembling animals rather than human beings. Leave the ungrateful soil and somber sky of the Occident!

Go to Palestine, go to the Orient, the land of azure and of sunshine, fertile, splendid, radiant, studded with magnificent cities, palaces of marble, gilded cupolas, delicious gardens! There you will find the treasures for centuries acc.u.mulated by the Saracens, treasures so prodigious that they suffice to pave with gold, rubies, pearls and diamonds the whole road from Gaul to Jerusalem! G.o.d delivers into your hands that teeming soil, its palaces, its beautiful women, its treasures. Depart on the Holy War!' A large number of seigneurs will bite with all the snap of their heavy jaws at that bait glittering with all the fires of the sun of the Orient."

"You are right, Jeronimo," observed the Bishop of Nantes. "But do you not fear that the seigniorial station, thus stripped, shrunk and ruined, will leave the place open for the royalty, to-day without power, and that that royalty will not endeavor to share with us the dominion of the people, and will not even strive to dominate the Church?"

"We need not fear the rivalry of the Kings. Even their private interests are to us a safe guarantee of their submission to the will of the Pope, the representative of G.o.d on earth, the dispenser of eternal rewards or punishments."

"Oh, Jeronimo, your words have opened a new horizon before me. I see now the future of the Catholic Church in all her formidable majesty. I now cleave to life, and would wish to a.s.sist at that magnificent spectacle."

"This topic has a close bearing upon our present position of prisoners of Neroweg VI, and you must inspire yourself with it, Simon, to the end that you may regulate your conduct accordingly."

"Tell me what I am to do, Jeronimo. I can take no more precious a guide than you in all matters concerning our holy religion."

"Neroweg relies upon your torture to extort from you the possession of the domains of your diocese, which he has long coveted. Accede to all that he may demand. Peter the Hermit and Walter the Pennyless will not be long in arriving in this region to preach the Crusade. Neroweg will depart for Jerusalem, and will not be able to profit from the concessions you will have granted."

"But say he insists upon putting me to the torture to glut his thirst for revenge upon me! I shudder at the prospect."

The conversation between the Bishop of Nantes and the monk was here interrupted by a rumbling and weird noise, that seemed to proceed from the interior of the thick wall. The two prelates trembled with affright, and looked at each other. Then, drawing near the wall in the direction from which the noise came, they applied their ears with bated breath.

But the noise slowly receded, and a few minutes later died away completely.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CHAMBER OF TORTURE.

The dungeon of Bezenecq the Rich and his daughter, vaulted and floored with stone slabs like the other subterranean cells, but located on the second story of that redoubtable structure, received a somewhat better light from its narrow loop-hole. In the center of the cell stood a gridiron, six feet long, three wide, raised a good deal above the floor, and constructed of iron bars placed slightly apart from each other.

Chains and rings, fastened to the gridiron, served to keep the victim in position. Near this instrument of punishment rose two other engines of torture, devised with ingenious ferocity. The one consisted of a projecting iron bar, in the nature of a gibbet about seven or eight feet above the floor, and terminating in an iron carcan that opened and closed at will. A heavy stone, weighing about two tons, and furnished with a ring and a strap to hang it by, lay at the foot of the gibbet.

The other engine had the appearance of a gigantic p.r.o.ng, sharp and turned back similar to those used by butchers to hang their quarters of beef on. The slabs of the flooring, covered everywhere else with greenish moisture, wore a blood-red tint under the p.r.o.ng. Opposite to this instrument of punishment, there was grossly sculptured on the wall, a sort of grinning mask, hideous, half beast, half human; its eyes and the cavity of its gaping mouth, resembled deep black holes. Finally, close to the door of the cell stood a wooden box full of straw, and there lay the daughter of the townsman of Nantes, colorless like a corpse, and frozen with terror. At times her body shook with convulsive shivers, other times she remained motionless, her eyes shut, without, therefore, however, her tears ceasing to stream down her cheeks.

Bezenecq the Rich, seated on the edge of the straw bed, his elbows on his knees and his forehead hidden in his hands, was saying to himself: "The seigneur of Plouernel.... A descendant of Neroweg!... Strange, fatal encounter!... Woe is us!"

"Oh, father," murmured the maid in a fainting voice, "this encounter is our sentence of death."

"The sentence of our ruin, but not of our death. Calm yourself, poor child, the seigneur of Plouernel knows not that our obscure family, descended from the Gallic chieftain Joel, who made a head against Caesar, has been at strife with his own all through the past ages, since the Frankish conquest. But when that bailiff p.r.o.nounced the name of Neroweg VI, which I had not heard mention during this ill-starred journey, and when, questioned by me, that man answered his master belonged to the ancient Frankish family of Neroweg, established in Auvergne since the conquest of Gaul by Clovis, I no longer had any doubts, and, despite myself, I shuddered at the recollection of our family records, which our father once read to us at Laon, and that have remained in that country, in the hands of Gildas, my elder brother."

"Oh, why did our grandfather leave Brittany. Our family lived there so happy."

"Dear child, our grandfather, who lived near the sacred stones of Karnac, the cradle of our family, could no longer endure the oppression of the Breton seigneurs, who had grown to be as cruel as their Frankish fellows. He sold his little havings, and embarked with his wife at Vannes on a merchant vessel bound for Abbeville. He settled down in that city, where he set up a modest trade. Later, my father moved into the province of Picardy, and settled at Laon, where my elder brother Gildas still carries on the currier's trade. Coming by sea from Abbeville to Nantes to traffic in the articles of our trade, manufactured in Laon, I became acquainted with your mother, the daughter of the merchant to whom I was directed. Her parents did not wish to part from her. They made me promise not to leave Nantes. I became the partner of my wife's father, and grew rich in the business. Your mother then died. You were still a child. Her death was the greatest sorrow of my life. But you were left to me. You grew in gracefulness and beauty. Everything smiled upon me again. I was happy. And behold us now, while yielding to the wishes of your grandmother--" and Bezenecq interrupted himself with a cry of despair: "Oh, it is frightful!"