The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion: A Tale of the Jacquerie

"To the point," broke in the Regent impatiently. "What do you want? Speak!"

"Sire! The people demand, first of all the loyal enforcement of the reform ordinances which you have signed and promulgated."

"You are called the King of Paris," answered the Regent with a caustic smile; "well, then, rule!.. Save the country!"

"Sire! The voice of the national assembly has been heard in Paris and in some other large towns. But your partisans and your officers, sovereign in their seigniories or in the domains which they govern in your name, have banded themselves to prevent the execution of the laws upon which the safety of Gaul depends. Such a state of things must promptly cease, Sire!.. Aye, very promptly. The people so wills it."

The Regent turned to the group of prelates and seigneurs at the head of whom stood the Marshal of Normandy; a hurried council was again held by the courtiers who hastened around their chief; and then returning to the provost, the Regent answered haughtily: "Is that your only grievance? Let's hear the rest!!"

"We have imperative demands."

"What else do you want?"

"An act of justice and reparation, Sire! Perrin Macé, a bourgeois of Paris, has been mutilated and then put to death in defiance of right and of law by the order of some of your courtiers… The seigneur who ordered the execution of an innocent man must be sentenced to death! It is the law of retaliation."

"By the cross of the Saviour!" cried the Regent. "You dare come and demand of me the condemnation and execution of the marshal of Normandy, my best friend!"

"That man is causing your ruin with his detestable advice. He shall expiate his crime."

"Impudent scamp!" cried out the marshal of Normandy in a fit of rage, threatening Marcel with his sword. "You have the audacity to make charges against me!"

"Not another word!" ordered the Regent interrupting his favorite and beckoning him to lower his sword. "It is for me to answer in this place. I order you, Master Marcel, to leave this place, and upon the spot!"

"Sire!" answered the provost with patronizing commiseration, "you are young, my hairs are grey… Your age is impetuous, mine is calm… I therefore have the right and the duty to lecture to you. I beseech you in the name of the country, in the name of your crown, to loyally fulfill your promises, and, however painful it may seem to you, to grant the reparation that I demand in the name of justice. Prove in that manner that, when the law is audaciously violated, you punish the guilty, whatever his rank… Sire! It is still time for you to listen to the voice of equity! – "

"And I tell you, Master Marcel," yelled the Regent furiously, "that it is time, high time, to put an end to your insolent requests! Be gone, instantly!"

"Away with this varlet in rebellion against his King," cried the courtiers, like the Regent re-assured and deceived by the attitude of Marcel's armed escort, that remained mute and motionless, and turning to them the marshal of Normandy called out: "As to you, good people of Paris, who now regret the criminal errand on which this bedeviled rebel has brought you despite yourselves, join us, the true friends of your King, in punishing the treason of this miserable Marcel… Let his blood fall upon himself!"

The provost smothered a sigh of regret, stepped back a few paces so as to place himself beyond the reach of the marshal's sword, turned to his people and said: "Carry out the orders that brought you here."

These words were hardly uttered when Marcel's armed men, anxious to make amends for the silence and prolonged restraint imposed upon them by his orders, burst loose in an explosion of cries of indignation and of threats that struck the Regent and his courtiers with stupor and consternation. Rufin the Tankard-smasher bolted upon the marshal of Normandy, seized him by the collar and cried: "You had Perrin Macé mutilated and hanged; now you shall be hanged! The gibbet is ready!"

"And this for you, caitiff," responded the marshal, quick as lightning transfixing the student's left arm with a thrust of his sword. "The cord that is to hang me is not yet twisted."

"No, but the iron that will smash you to death is forged, my noble gentleman," answered the student dealing with his mace a furious blow upon the marshal's head. "I have been Rufin the Tankard-smasher; now I am Rufin the Head-smasher!"

The student spoke true. The marshal's skull was crushed; he fell and expired at the Regent's feet bestaining with his blood the latter's robe. During the tumult that ensued, the marshal of Champagne rushed at Marcel dagger in hand. But William Caillet, who had all the while been seeking with burning eyes for the Sire of Nointel from among the brilliant bevy of courtiers, threw himself in front of the provost ahead of Jocelyn, who had darted forward with the same intention, and the old peasant thrust his pike into the bowels of the marshal. The corpse of the courtier rolled upon the floor. Popular vengeance was taken.

The other seigneurs and prelates, who had run to the royal chamber, fled back distracted by the door that had admitted them. When the Regent, who, fainting with terror, had crouched back upon the bed with his face hidden in his hands, looked up again, he found himself alone with Marcel and not far from the prostrate corpses of his two councilors. Marcel's armed men had slowly departed through the gallery together with Caillet, while Jocelyn was engaged near a window in bandaging with his handkerchief the wound of the student.

Finally, protruding under the drapery of the bed behind which he had held himself all the while motionless as a mouse, the feet were seen of the seigneur of Norville, who had lacked even the strength to flee.

"Mercy, Master Marcel!" cried the Regent, trembling with fear and throwing himself at Marcel's feet with arms outstretched in supplication and his face in tears. "Do not kill me; have pity upon me, my good father! Mercy!"

"We have no thought of killing you," Marcel answered, painfully touched by the suspicion; and stooping down to raise the Regent added: "May my name be accursed if such a crime ever entered my mind! Fear not, Sire! Rise! The people of Paris are good."

"Oh, my good father! I beg your pardon on my knees for having ignored your wise counsels and listened to bad advisers." Breaking out into sobs, the young prince added, wringing his hands in despair: "Oh, good God! Alone and so young to be far away from my father, who is held a prisoner, is it any fault of mine if I placed confidence in the men around me?" The Regent's eyes fell upon the corpses of the two marshals. In heart-rending accents he proceeded: "There they are, the men who misled me! They loved me! They knew me since my cradle! But, like myself, they were blind in their error. Oh, good father! Reproach me not for weeping over the fate of these unfortunate men. It is my last adieu to them," and still on his knees, the Regent crouched lower, his face in his hands and continued sobbing – with rage, not repentance.

Although long made acquainted by experience with the Regent's profound duplicity – a degree of duplicity almost incredible at so tender an age – Marcel was deceived by what seemed the sincerity of the young man's distressful accent. His touching prayer, his tears, the sorrow which he did not fear to express at the death of his two councilors – all combined to induce the belief that, frightened by the terrible reprisals that had taken place under his own eyes, the Regent was sincerely contrite at his errors, and that, convinced at last regarding his own interests, which commanded him to break with the evil past, he now really desired to march on the straight path. Marcel congratulated himself on the happy change, and said to Jocelyn in a low voice: "Order our people away from the gallery. Let them leave the palace and assemble under the large window of the Louvre. You and Rufin may stay with me. I shall take the Regent out of this chamber. The sight of the corpses is too painful to him."

Jocelyn and the student executed the orders of Marcel. Crouching on the floor the Regent did not cease moaning and sobbing. The seigneur of Norville left his hiding place without being noticed by the prince, and approaching him on tip-toe whispered in his ear: "Sire, the most faithful of all your servitors is happy of having braved a thousand dangers and deaths sooner than to leave you alone with these bandits and rebels. Allow me, my noble and dear master, to help you to rise."

The Regent obeyed mechanically, and noticing that Marcel, who was just giving his instructions to Jocelyn and Rufin, could neither see nor hear him, he whispered back to Norville: "Do not leave me. Watch for a moment when I can speak to you without being seen by anybody"; observing thereupon that Marcel was again approaching, while the champion and Rufin both left the room, he uttered a piteous moan, turned to the corpses of the two marshals and muttered in a smothered voice: "Adieu, oh, you who loved me and whose sad errors I shared. May God receive you in his Paradise!"

"Come, Sire, come," said Marcel with kindness, leading the Regent to the gallery; "come, lean upon me!"

The seigneur of Norville followed the prince from whom he did not take his eyes and said to the provost in an undertone: "Oh, Master Marcel! Be the protector, the tutor of my poor young master… He always had a tender feeling for you!"

"Now, Sire," Marcel said to the Regent after they had gone a little way, "I place confidence in your promise … I believe in the salutary effect of the terrible example you witnessed. Oh, these painful extremes; but violence fatedly engenders violence!.. It now depends upon you, Sire, to prevent the recurrence of similar acts of reprisal. Give the example of respect for the law. All will then look to the law instead of resorting to force, the last recourse of men when they have vainly invoked justice! The present moment is decisive. If you should still belie our hopes … our new hopes; if unfortunately it should be shown to us that you are incapable or unworthy of ruling under the watchful and severe vigilance of the States General, elected by the nation herself, I tell you sincerely, Sire, the people, finding their patience exhausted, and impatient of further deceit, sufferings, disasters and misery, might respect your life, but they would then choose another King who shall be more thoughtful of the public weal… You will then cease to reign."

"Oh, good father! Why threaten me! I am a poor young man, and am at your mercy. Have pity upon me!"

"Sire! I do not threaten you. Far from me be such cruelty! I only place things before you such as they are. It depends upon you to help towards the public safety."

"Speak, speak, good father… I shall obey you as a most respectful son, I swear to you upon my salvation… Moreover, you shall be my only councilor… Speak, what do you order?"

"The people are assembled before the Louvre… They are informed of the death of the marshal of Normandy… Show yourself at the window… Say a few good words to the crowd… Announce plainly your good resolves… Declare that the cause of the people is above all yours … and here, Sire," added Marcel, taking off his hat and offering it to the Regent, "as a token of our alliance, good will and harmony, wear my hat with the popular colors. The inhabitants of Paris will be pleased at this first proof of condescension and agreement."

"Give it to me… Give it to me," the Regent said with avidity, hastening to don Marcel's hat of red and blue. "A friend like you, my good father … only such a friend could give me such an advice… Open the window; I wish to speak to my well beloved people of Paris," added the Regent addressing the seigneur of Norville, who having held himself at a distance during the conversation of Marcel and the prince, now again drew near as ordered. "Open the window wide," said the prince.

"Jocelyn," observed Rufin in a low voice to the champion while the Regent, slowly moving towards the window that the seigneur of Norville hastened to open, seemed to be consulting Marcel, "what do you think of the good resolutions of that youngster?"

"Like Master Marcel, I believe him sincere. Not that I trust in the heart of that royal stripling, but because it is to his interest to follow wise counsel."

"Hm! Hm! To me it looks as if he is playing a comedy. A prince's word is poor guarantee."

"Do you imagine the Regent is so double-faced or so foolish as to try to deceive Master Marcel?"

"As true as Homer is the king of rhapsodists, never was my wench Margot about to play me some scurvy trick without she called me her 'musk-rat,' her 'beautiful king,' her 'gold canary,' and other names no less flattering than deceitful."

"But what connection is there between Margot and the Regent? Quit your fooling!"

"Listen to me to the end. I happen to have an assignment with her for this evening near the Louvre, on the river bank, because by what she says, her friend Jeannette does not want to see me at her house. Very well. I swear by Ovid, the poet beloved of Cupid, Margot acted the gentle puss and induced me to go and inhale the mists of the Seine simply because she had made up her mind to go elsewhere this evening."

"Rufin, let's talk seriously!"

"Seriously, Jocelyn. I fear that the promises of the Regent are like those of Margot! I can assure you, much as the sword thrust I received smarts me devilishly, I would have preferred having pocketed one more in return for having settled the accounts of that puling youngster as I did the accounts of the marshal of Normandy."

"Come, now! Those are excesses worthy only of John Maillart… But, by the way, did he accompany us hither?"

"No. After he had, despite all your and Marcel's entreaties, driven a few miserable brutes to massacre Master Dubreuil when he crossed our march on his mule, Maillart disappeared. I place no reliance on him. Heaven and earth! That murder was deplorable! The marshals of Normandy and Champagne were enough – "

"Listen!" cried Jocelyn interrupting his friend, and pointing to the Regent, who, having advanced to the balcony, was addressing the people gathered on the street.

"Beloved inhabitants of my good city of Paris," the Regent was saying in a moved and tearful voice, "I appear before you firmly resolved to make amends for my wrongful conduct. I swear by these colors that are your own, and that henceforth will be mine," he added, carrying his hand to the red and blue hat he wore on his head. "The marshal of Normandy, one of my councilors, unjustly ordered the execution of Perrin Macé, an honest bourgeois of Paris. The marshal has just been put to death. May that reparation satisfy you, dear and good Parisians! Let us forget our dissensions; let us join in a common accord for the country's good… Let us love one another! Let us help one another! I admit my errors! Will you pardon them? Oh, I am so young! Evil councilors led me astray. But I shall henceforth have only one… That councilor … here he is!" and the Regent, turning towards Marcel, added: "Good inhabitants of Paris, receive this embrace which I now give you from the bottom of my heart in the person of the great citizen whom we all cherish, whom we all venerate." While pronouncing these last words, the young prince threw himself weeping into the arms of the provost and pressed him to his breast, – the embrace of rulers, a mortal caress!

At the touching spectacle, the enthusiastic clamors of the mobile and credulous mass resounded loud, and prolonged cries of "Long live Marcel!" "Long live the Regent!" "To a happy issue!" greeted the reconciliation as a happy augury of the future.

Profoundly moved himself, Marcel said to the Regent upon returning with him into the gallery: "Sire, full of hope and of confidence, the people acclaimed with their joyous cries an era of peace, of justice, of grandeur and of prosperity. Do not shatter so many hopes. Good is so easy for you to achieve! It is so beautiful to bequeath to posterity a glorious name, blessed by all."

"My good father!" answered the Regent, panting for breath, "my eyes have been opened to the light; my heart expands… I am reborn for a new life… You shall not leave me to-day; only to-night if you must… Let's go to work… Let us jointly take prompt, energetic measures… Oh! Your wishes shall be realized… I shall bequeath to posterity a name blessed by all… Come, my good father!" and passing his arm around the neck of Marcel with filial familiarity, the young man took a few steps with him in the gallery towards his cabinet. But suddenly stopping, he added in the most natural manner, as if struck by a thought: "Oh, I forgot!" He then left Marcel and stepped back towards the seigneur of Norville, whom he called. The latter hastened to respond and the Regent whispered to him: "This evening, at nightfall, let a vessel manned with two trusty sailors be ready for me just outside the barrier facing the postern gate of the Louvre… Gather all my gold and precious stones in a coffer, and keep yourself ready to accompany me. Prudence and discretion!"

"Sire, rely upon me!"

"Well, Jocelyn," said Marcel to the champion during the secret conversation of the Regent and his courtier, "you see it… My hopes have not been deceived… The lesson was terrible and salutary. Return home and tell Marguerite that I do not expect to be back until late. I wish to profit on the spot by the young man's repentance. He and I will probably work together a part of the night."

"Pardon me, my good father," said the Regent to the provost, returning to him; "we shall doubtlessly be up late together, and I wished to notify the Queen that I may not see her again to-day"; and again placing his arm around Marcel's neck he said to him while walking towards the cabinet: "Now, to work! Good father, to work! And quickly!"

Thus, followed by the seigneur of Norville, the two quitted the gallery, from which also Jocelyn and Rufin took their departure together.

"After what you have just heard," remarked the champion to the student, "can you still entertain any doubts concerning the Regent's sincerity? Do you still believe he plays a comedy?"

"Do you remember, Jocelyn, that at the University we were in the habit of taking aim with a stone saying: 'If my stone hits, my first wish will be realized?'"

"Rufin!" sadly answered the champion, "since on my arrival in Paris I learned of my father's death, I have lost my sense of humor. As I said to you before, I say now, let us talk seriously, my friend."

"I would not, my worthy Jocelyn, seem to make light of your bereavement; and yet, out of place as my words may seem, they are, by Jupiter, to the point! All I shall say is this: Day before yesterday, my wench Margot gave me, with a good many monkey tricks and pussy purrings, an assignment at the river bank. If Margot is faithful to her promise, I shall then believe the Regent to be sincere in his good resolves; not before."

"The devil take the fool!" said Jocelyn impatiently and he walked away ahead of Rufin, who pensively said to himself: "My friend Rufin the Head smasher, you are become as much of a fatalist as a Mohamedan! That's a shameful thing for a free thinker!"

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HOUR HAS SOUNDED!

Marcel had not yet arrived home although night was far advanced. Marguerite, Denise and William Caillet were seated together in one of the upper chambers of the house. The two women listened with wrapt and grief-stricken attention to the narrative of Jocelyn who had just finished the story of Aveline and Mazurec.

"Delivered from the dungeon in the castle of Beaumont, thanks to the bizarre generosity of Captain Griffith," the champion was saying, "I hastened to Paris, and at my arrival," added the young man unable to contain his tears, "I learned of the death of my venerated father."

"Ah! At least he loved you with his last breath," said Denise sharing the emotions of Jocelyn. "Your father came here almost every day, and we only spoke of you."

"Let that thought console you, Jocelyn," observed Marguerite. "Your father considered you an exemplary son."

"I know it, Dame Marguerite; and the thought does afford me some consolation in my bereavement. Before dying my father gave me a proof of the confidence he placed in my respect and affection. He made an important revelation."

"On what?" asked Marguerite.

"I told you of the profound interest that Mazurec inspired me with, Mazurec, the husband of Caillet's daughter," answered Jocelyn with deep emotion. "Well, then, after the last revelation made by my father, I can doubt no longer that Mazurec is my brother!"

"Are you certain?" Marguerite and Denise cried in one voice. "That unfortunate lad, that martyr, your brother!"

"Is it possible?" asked Caillet in turn and no less astonished. "How do you know it?"

"When my mother died," explained Jocelyn, "I was a child and my father quite young. One evening, some four or five years later, as he was entering Paris, he found on the road a young peasant woman lying on the ground unconscious and bleeding of a wound. Moved by compassion, he raised and carried her to a neighboring inn. The young woman regained consciousness and informed him that she was a vassal of the Bishop of Paris, and that, having lost her mother since early childhood, she was then fleeing from a merciless step-mother who that same day came near killing her. The young woman was named Gervaise. Touched by her youth, her misfortune and her beauty, my father apprenticed her to a washerwoman who lived near us. He often visited his protegé. Both loved each other, and one day Gervaise informed my father that she carried under her heart the fruit of their joint indiscretion. My father, as an honest man, realized his duty, but being at that season forced to leave Paris on a trip, promised Gervaise under oath to marry her upon his return. Several weeks, a month and two passed by and my father did not return – "

"But he was a man incapable of violating a sacred promise," interjected Marguerite. "During the long years that we knew your father, we learned to appreciate the straightforwardness of his nature and the goodness of his heart. Undoubtedly some serious accident must have kept him away."

"Almost at the end of his journey, my father was attacked by a band of highwaymen. He was robbed, wounded and left for dead on the road."

"And that prevented him from communicating with Gervaise?"

"He was picked up and for a long time he languished between life and death. The unhappy woman thought herself deserted. The consequences of her error began to betray her weakness. A prey to shame and despair she left Paris!"

"Her condition should have earned the sympathy of people."

"Barely convalescent, my father hastened to write to Gervaise announcing his speedy return. But when he arrived she had disappeared. Despite all the inquiries that he instituted, he never succeeded in finding her again. Her disappearance was a great sorrow to him, and remorse haunted him the rest of his days. Such was his confession in a letter that he wrote to me shortly before his death, and in which he conjured me, if by some accident, impossible to foresee, I should meet Gervaise or her child, to atone for the injury that he had involuntarily done to both."

"And thus, thanks to a strange coincidence," observed Marguerite, "you now feel certain that the unhappy Mazurec, whose distressing story you have told us, is indeed your brother?"

"I can have no doubt. After leaving Paris, Gervaise arrived in Beauvoisis begging for her bread, shortly before giving birth to Mazurec, and he himself told me that his mother's name was Gervaise; that she was blonde; that her eyes were black, and that she had a little scar above the left eye-brow. The description corresponds exactly with that which my father left me of the poor creature. The scar came from a blow that she received from her step-mother. Finally, by naming her son Mazurec, one of my father's names, the poor woman furnished the last link to the chain of evidence."

"Your father was at least saved a bitter sorrow," remarked Denise sadly, "of never having learned the horrible fate of Gervaise's son."

Steps were at that moment heard mounting the stairs. Marguerite listened attentively, and quickly rising and stepping to the door exclaimed: "It is Marcel! God be praised!" and turning in a low voice to Denise who had followed her: "I could hardly conceal my uneasiness; my husband's late absence was seriously alarming me. May God be praised for his return!"