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

"Help, father!" Gloriande continued to cry, ever seeking to escape the grip of Mazurec, whose nails, now long and bent like those of a bird of prey, dug deep into the flesh of the Sire of Nointel's bride and held her firmly while he exclaimed: "This noble damosel is mine!"

"Vassal!" cried the seigneur of Chivry gasping for breath and addressing Caillet: "You are the chief of these bandits; save my daughter's life and honor and I promise to pardon you… Be merciful… I swear by the living God, I shall remit the punishment that your crimes deserve!"

"Noble seigneur," replied the chief of the Jacques with ominously sinister calmness, "the wedding day of the child whom we love is a beautiful day! It is a beautiful day for the nobles – "

"Oh, indeed I believed this morning that the wedding day of my daughter Gloriande would be a beautiful day for me."

"So did I imagine on the morning of the day when my daughter Aveline-who-never-lied wedded… A vassal has a father's heart… I tenderly loved my daughter… She was a sweet and pure girl, the pride of my miserable life… Your son-in-law, the Sire of Nointel, had my daughter dragged to his bed … the next day he returned her to me!"

"The Sire of Nointel only exercised the right he has over all brides who are not noble!.. It is his right of first fruits… It is the feudal law!"

"Conrad of Nointel exercised a right that he derived from force… To-day the Jacques are stronger, and they will, in turn, exercise their right," answered Caillet without abandoning his savage calmness. "Mazurec, my daughter's bridegroom sought to resist the ignomy she was threatened with… In punishment for his rebellion he was compelled to make the amende honorable on his knees before his seigneur… Yesterday my daughter, together with so many other victims, was smothered to death by the smoke that the bailiff of the Sire of Nointel ordered the cavern in which they had taken refuge to be filled with… 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!' … So says Scripture… The Sire of Nointel has outraged the bride of Mazurec the Lambkin… Now the bride of the Sire of Nointel belongs to Mazurec."

The Jacques greeted the sentence of their chief with triumphant acclaim, while with one kick Adam the Devil broke open the door of Gloriande's nuptial chamber, and by the light of the torches of perfumed wax that burned within from massive candlesticks of silver, the Jacques saw the dazzling interior of the apartment.

Painting with terror Gloriande still struggled with Mazurec who dragged her to the nuptial couch. "Father! Deliver me!" cried the agonized belle.

"Thus did Aveline call me to her help," said William Caillet with his foot on the Count of Chivry. "You shall drain the cup to the lees!"

"Oh, death! rather than to witness such atrocities!" cried the Sire of Nointel. "Heaven and earth! To see that miserable vassal dare to lay hands upon Gloriande! The scamp is tearing down the curtains! He means to violate my bride!"

"Oh! Oh! You are a rebel!" cried Adam the Devil laughing loudly. "We now sentence you to make the amende honorable on both knees before your master and seigneur, Jacques Bonhomme, in the person of Mazurec; and you shall beg his pardon for having insulted him … for calling him scamp!"

"Conrad, let us know how to die!" cried the knight of Chaumontel. "We shall soon be revenged upon these scamps; not one of them will escape the lances of the knights."

Jocelyn the Champion, who had until then stood by an impassive witness, now stepped forward and heavily laying his iron gauntlet upon the knight's shoulder said to him: "You fought cased in iron against my brother Mazurec who was half naked and armed only with a stick. I have decided that you shall now fight him, yourself half naked and armed with a stick, he cased in iron. If you are vanquished you shall be thrown into a bag and drowned. To-day, from appellee, Jacques Bonhomme has become appellant."

"But before the combat," cried Adam the Devil, "let us take supper, my Jacques; the table is set; plenty of wine is still left in the flagons; also meats on the dishes!.. Let us feast before the eyes of these seigneurs, the fathers, brothers or husbands of yonder dames and damosels!.. Fall to, my Jacques! Long live love and wine! After the feast we shall lock up this whole nobility, men, women and children, in the underground prisons of the castles! The ruins of the burnt-down manor shall be their fitting tombstone… Fall to, Jacques Bonhomme… Long live love and wine, and ours be the dames and damosels of these nobles!"

CHAPTER V.

THE ORVILLE BRIDGE

Night is about to yield to day; the moon is setting; the first glimmerings of dawn begin to crimson the eastern sky. The troop of Jacques, who fired the manor of Chivry after putting its noble tenants to the sword, is now marching towards the bridge that spans the Orville river, and from which, the year before, tied in a bag, Mazurec was thrown into the water. At the head of the troop march William, Mazurec, Jocelyn and Adam the Devil. Behind them follow the Jacques leading the Sire of Nointel and the knight of Chaumontel, half naked, unarmed and pinioned. His head covered with the casque, clad in the cuirass and coat of mail, and armed with the dagger and sword of the knight of Chaumontel, Mazurec marches between Jocelyn the Champion and Caillet. Halting at the crest of the hill they had just ascended, and which commanded a wide view of the surrounding country, the latter cried pointing in several directions of the horizon that was either lighted with flames or darkened with black clouds:

"Do you see the castles of Chivry, of Bourgeuil, of Saint-Prix, of Montsorin, of Villiers, of Rochemur and so many others, aye, so many others, set this night on fire, sacked and their noble masters put to the sword by bands of revolted serfs?.. Do you hear the village bells summoning the serfs to arms?.. They sound still! They are summoning the Jacques to the hunt of the nobles!"

Indeed, the hurried peals of the bells, loudly sounding from a large number of villages that lay scattered in the fields and forests, reached the hill, carried thither by the morning breeze. The horizon, reflecting the flames that were devouring so many feudal manors, itself seemed on fire. Hardly were the first rays of the sun able to penetrate the thickness of the somber mass of smoke.

"The sight is worth the music!" remarked Adam the Devil listening to the sound of the bells. Crossing his arms behind him, spreading out his legs, and poising himself on his robust loins he swept with an eager eye the flaming curtain of the distant conflagrations. "There they are on fire and in ruins, those proud donjons cemented in the blood and the sweat of our people, and that for centuries have been the terror of our fathers! Ha! Ha! Ha!" and laughing boisterously the serf proceeded: "What mournful scenes must now be enacting at those manors!"

"At this hour," observed Caillet, "in Beauvoisis, in Laonnais, in Picardy, in Vermandois, in Champagne, everywhere, in the Isle of France, Jacques Bonhomme is making similar bonfires! Everywhere the nobility and their supporting priests are being massacred!"

"I wish I could see all the fires!" exclaimed Adam the Devil, raising his head. "I would like to hear all the cries uttered by these nobles!"

"Oh!" observed Jocelyn, with profound sorrow, "if the cries of our fathers, the male and female serfs and vassals, who for so many hundreds of years have endured martyrdom, could reach us across the centuries!.. Oh! if the cries of our mothers, borne down by serfdom, starved in misery, and outraged by the seigneurs, could now reach us across these many centuries… If that could be, then the frightful concert of maledictions, of imprecations and of cries of pain that would reach us would drown that which now goes up from these feudal strongholds!.. The hour of justice has come at last!"

"Brother," said Mazurec, sad and dejected, while hastening his steps so as to leave Caillet and Adam the Devil behind and snatch a few moments of privacy with Jocelyn, "I have an admission to make to you … and perhaps also to pray your indulgence for a weakness of my heart… When I had dragged the bride of Conrad into her nuptial chamber … and after the door was closed behind us, Gloriande threw herself at my feet, and with joined hands she implored mercy. I said to myself: 'My poor Aveline must have prayed for mercy … she must have suffered terribly.' I wept at the thought of Aveline; I forgot my hatred and my vengeance. Seeing me weep, Gloriande redoubled her supplications. I then said to her: 'In my condition of serf I had but one joy in the world, the love of Aveline-who-never-lied… She was outraged by my seigneur, your bridegroom… After months of suffering and despair she died, smothered by smoke in the cavern of Nointel shortly before being delivered of the child of her shame… It seems to me I see my poor Aveline, on her knees, like you now, asking for mercy… It is her whom I pity… You need not fear me!' And Gloriande took my hands in hers, kissed and moistened them with her tears… She begged me to allow her to escape by a secret passage. I consented. I remained in the room, thinking of Aveline until they set fire to the castle. I did not wish to outrage my seigneur's bride… Vengeance would not have restored to me my lost happiness."

"Oh, my poor brother! Gentle soul! Generous heart!" answered Jocelyn, deeply moved. "You whom nature made Mazurec the Lambkin and whom your master's ferocity transformed into Mazurec the Wolf! You were born to love, not to hate! Oh, you speak truly! Vengeance does not return the lost happiness! Sublime martyr, you need no indulgence for your generous conduct! Your heart did not fail you; it inspired itself with the principle of mercy proclaimed by the young carpenter of Nazareth!" And seeing that Adam the Devil and Caillet were approaching, Jocelyn added, in a low voice: "Brother, let none know that you respected Gloriande; above all, Conrad must, for his punishment, believe that his bride was dishonored!" Turning then to Caillet, who had just joined the two, Jocelyn observed: "We shall soon be at the Orville bridge. Our friends are anxious we should reach the spot quickly. The work of punishment is not yet finished."

The slanting rays of the sun now glisten in the rapid waters of the Orville that the previous year had swallowed up Mazurec pinioned and tied in a bag. On its banks still stand the trunks of the old willow trees from which were hanged the serfs caught in the riot of the tourney. The morning breeze agitates the reeds that concealed Adam the Devil and Jocelyn during the preparations for the death of Mazurec, and from behind which they had succeeded in rescuing him.

The Jacques arrived at the bridge, crossed it and stepped upon the broad meadow in the middle of which the last year's tourney given by the seigneur of Nointel was held. They halted there. A large number of them had been spectators of the passage of arms, and had afterwards witnessed the judicial duel between Mazurec and the knight of Chaumontel. Obedient to the orders of Caillet, several peasants proceeded to cut it with their scythes young tree branches, that they stuck in the ground, forming an enclosure about thirty feet square, in imitation of the fence or barrier of tourneys. The enclosure being ready, the Jacques crowded in dense ranks around it.

At a signal, William Caillet approached the men who led the pinioned Sire of Nointel and the knight of Chaumontel. The latter, though pale, still preserved his resoluteness; the former, however, looking dejected and discouraged, was now a prey to superstitious terror. He sees verified the sinister prophecy of his vassal, who the year before had said to him: "You have outraged my bride, your bride shall be outraged."

Of all his attire, the Sire of Nointel has preserved only his jerkin and velvet shoes, now in shreds from the roughness of the road. Cold drops of perspiration gather at his temples. Caillet addresses him: "Last year my daughter was forcibly placed in your bed … last night Mazurec, the wronged bridegroom whom we saved from the watery grave that you decreed to him, returned outrage for outrage… My daughter and many other victims died an atrocious death in the cavern of the forest of Nointel, last night your bride and many other nobles died in the underground dungeons of the castle of Chivry that Jacques Bonhomme set on fire… But that is not yet enough. Mazurec was sentenced to make the amende honorable to you because he insulted you; seeing that you insulted Mazurec when he dragged away your wife, you shall now make the amende honorable on your knees before Mazurec. If you refuse," added Caillet, seeing the enraged seigneur stamp the ground with his feet, "if you refuse, I shall then sentence you to the same death that you have inflicted upon several of your vassals. Two young and strong trees shall be bent, you shall be tied by the feet to the one and by the arms to the other, the saplings will then be let free to straighten themselves up again… You are forewarned, Sire of Nointel!"

"I witnessed the death of my friend Toussaint the Heavy-bell, who was dismembered in that manner by your orders between two oak saplings!" interposed Adam the Devil. "I know exactly how it must be done in order to manage that torture successfully. Now choose between the amende honorable or the death we just described."

"Submit, Conrad!" said the knight of Chaumontel, with bitter disdain. "Let us submit to the extreme limit of the excesses of these varlets. We will be revenged. Oh, soon again the casque will resume the upperhand over the woolen cap, and the lance over the fork."

Shivering with dismay at the threatened torture, Conrad of Nointel answered his friend in a hoarse voice: "Gerard, do not leave me alone!"

"I shall be your faithful companion to the end," answered the knight. "We have joyously emptied more than one cup together, we shall die together."

Led by Jacques, the two nobles were placed in the center of the enclosure, around which stood the revolted vassals. Many of them had also witnessed the amende honorable of Mazurec, who, now armed in the armor of the knight of Chaumontel, is standing near the center of the lists, reclining on his long sword.

"On your knees!" ordered Adam the Devil to the Sire of Nointel, and pressing down with his strong hands the seigneur's shoulders, he made him drop on his knees at the feet of Mazurec. "And now, noble seigneur, repeat my words:

"Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme, I blame myself and humbly repent having used unseemly words against you when last night you dragged my noble bride…"

Outbursts of laughter, jeers and cat-calls from the Jacques greeted these words, which recalled to the Sire of Nointel both the forfeiture of his happiness and the disgrace of his bride. He shrank together, emitted a roar of pain, and burning tears dropped from his eyes while grinding his teeth he muttered: "Death and massacre!"

"That is quite painful, is it not, Sire of Nointel," suggested Caillet, "to be forced to beg pardon on one's knees for having wished to resist the outrage that is racking your mind? Poor Mazurec the Lambkin went through this shame only last year, as you are doing now!.. It is justice!.. Stay on your knees!"

"Come, let's hurry!" resumed Adam the Devil, "make the amende honorable on your knees before Jacques Bonhomme, if not, you shall be dismembered on the spot, my noble Sire!"

The Sire of Nointel answered only with a fresh roar of rage, writhing in his bonds: "Oh, my unhappy life!"

"Conrad," said Gerard, "repeat the empty words, yield to these cowardly varlets. What can you do against force? There is nothing but to submit."

"Never!" cried the Sire of Nointel, in a frenzy of rage. "Sooner a thousand deaths! To ask pardon of that miserable serf … when before my own eyes he dragged away my bride … my beautiful and proud Gloriande …" and breaking out again in a cry of rage: "Blood and massacre! A minute ago I felt overwhelmed… I now feel hell burning in my breast… Oh, if only I were free … I would tear these varlets to pieces with my nails and teeth! I would put them through a thousand deaths!"

"Sire of Nointel, if upon your knees you make the amende honorable to Mazurec, I shall then put a sword in your hand," said Jocelyn the Champion slowly drawing near. "I promise to fight with you, and you will then at least die as a man. Come, on your knees!"

"True?" mumbled Conrad, his mind wandering with despair and rage, "you will give me a sword?.. I shall be able to die seeing the blood of one of you flow … you miserable rebels!"

Seizing the naked sword that his brother held in his hand, Jocelyn took it and threw it on the ground a few paces from Conrad, and planting his foot upon the blade said: "Make the amende honorable – you will then be unbound and you may take this sword … then there shall be a combat to the death between us two, son of Neroweg!"

"Come, my handsome Sir," resumed Adam the Devil addressing Conrad, "come, repeat after me – 'Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme, I blame myself and humbly repent…'"

"Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme," repeated Conrad of Nointel in a voice strangling with rage and casting a furtive look at the sword only the sight of which imparted to him the necessary strength to perform the revolting expiatory act. "Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme, I blame myself and humbly repent… Shame and humiliation!"

"Having used unseemly words against you, Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme," proceeded Adam the Devil amidst new outbursts of laughter and jeers from the Jacques, "when last night you were about to outrage my bride on the nuptial bed … my belle Gloriande of Chivry."

"No, no, never," cried Conrad of Nointel, foaming at the mouth, "I never shall repeat those infamous words!"

Jocelyn took off and threw his casque at a distance, unbuckled his steel corselet, threw away his armlets, pulled off his leather jerkin, preserving only that part of his armor that covered his thighs and lower extremities, removed his shirt, leaving his breast bare, and said to the Sire of Nointel: "Here is flesh to bore holes through, if you can… I am wounded in the thigh … that evens up your chances; moreover, I swear I shall strike only at your breast; yes, I swear it, as truly as, freeman or serfs, my ancestors have during the centuries that rolled over us crossed swords with yours!"

"Oh, you dog whom my ancestors conquered… I shall kill you!" cried Conrad of Nointel nearly delirious. Retaining his posture on his knees before Mazurec, he muttered, gasping for breath: "I repent, seigneur Jacques Bonhomme … of having used unseemly words … against you … when you sought … to outrage … my bride in her nuptial bed…"

"The belle Gloriande of Chivry, and pronounce the name distinctly," said Adam the Devil. "Now, hurry up!"

"The … belle … Gloriande … of … Chivry …" repeated Conrad, as if tearing the words from his breast.

"High, puissant and redoubtable seigneur of Nointel, Jacques Bonhomme pardons you for the outrage he perpetrated upon you!" now put in Mazurec in the midst of a fresh explosion of triumphant laughter and contemptuous jeers uttered by the Jacques.

"The sword! The sword!" cried Conrad rising livid and fearful with rage, but with his hands still pinioned behind him, and addressing Jocelyn. "You promised me blood … yours … or mine… I wish to die seeing blood… To the sword, to the sword!"

"Remove his bonds," said the champion with his feet still on the sword that lay on the ground and drawing his own.

While the Jacques were unfastening the bonds that held the arms of the seigneur of Nointel, the knight of Chaumontel took a step towards his friend and said to him: "Farewell, Conrad … you are blinded with rage … you are weakened by the trials of last night … you will be killed by that Hercules … a champion by profession… But we shall be revenged."

"I killed!" cried the Sire of Nointel with a ghostly smile. "No, no; it is I who will kill the dog… I will cut the vagabond's throat!"

"Recommend your soul to St. James," said Gerard in a penetrating voice to Conrad; "an invocation to him is sovereign in cases of duels."

"Oh, I shall invoke my hatred," replied Conrad twitching his arms that Adam the Devil was about to unloosen. But Jocelyn made a sign to his companion to wait a moment before untying the Sire of Nointel, and then turning to the revolted serfs he made to them this vigorous and terse address:

"It is now eleven hundred years ago … one of my ancestors, Schavanoch the Soldier– the foster brother of Victoria the Great, the emperor woman who predicted the enfranchisement of Gaul – fought against one of the chiefs of the Frankish hordes who then threatened to invade Gaul, our mother country; that Frankish chieftain was called Neroweg the Terrible Eagle, and he was the ancestor of the Sire of Nointel, whom you there see before you… Two centuries later, the Franks, thanks to the complicity of the Bishop of Rome, had succeeded in conquering Gaul and in reducing her inhabitants to a condition of most cruel slavery; our land thereupon became a prey to our conquerors, and we moistened it with our sweat, our tears and our blood… During the first years of the Frankish conquest, Karadeuk the Bagaude, the ancestor of both Mazurec and myself, a revolted slave, fought with Neroweg, Count of Auvergne, count by the right of rapine and murder. That Neroweg had subjected to a cruel torture Loysik the Working-Hermit and Ronan the Vagre, sons of Karadeuk the Bagaude. Bagaudie and Vagrerie were the Jacquerie of those days. Vagres and Bagaudes revenged themselves then as the Jacques do now for the oppression of the seigneurs. In that fight between Karadeuk the Bagaude and the Count Neroweg, Neroweg fell under the axe of Karadeuk… Coming down to three centuries ago, another of my ancestors, Den-Brao the Mason was buried alive together with several other serfs, his fellow workmen, by Neroweg IV, Count of Plouernel in Brittany."

"That noble thereby buried together with Den-Brao the secret of an underground passage that they had been made to construct, leading from the feudal manor into the forest. The grandson of Den-Brao, who remained a serf of the seigniory of Plouernel, was called Fergan the Quarryman. Neroweg VI kidnapped a son of Fergan for the purpose of applying the child to the bloody sorceries of a witch. Fergan succeeded in rescuing his child, but he witnessed the murder of his two relatives Bezenecq the Rich and Bezenecq's daughter Isoline. Unable to pay an enormous ransom imposed upon him by Neroweg VI, Bezenecq perished under the torture, while Isoline, the witness of her father's torment, became insane and died. Then came the days of the Crusades. Fergan and his seigneur met face to face and alone in the middle of the desert of Syria. Fergan could have killed him by surprise, but he fought him and vanquished… Finally, only a year ago, my brother Mazurec the Lambkin has seen his bride dishonored by the Sire of Nointel, the scion of the Nerowegs of old, he forced my brother to make him the amende honorable at his feet, and thereupon to fight half naked with the knight of Chaumontel in full armor. Vanquished in this unequal combat and sentenced to be drowned in a bag, Mazurec would have perished but for Adam the Devil and myself, who succeeded in drawing him out of the river betimes, but his wife, Aveline-who-never-lied, died an atrocious death only a few days ago. The history of my family's sufferings is the history of the families of us all, the enslaved and oppressed of your class, Sire of Nointel, during so many centuries! Aye, among the thousands upon thousands of revolted vassals, who at this hour are running to arms, there is not one whose family has not undergone what mine has! The narrative of Mazurec's family and mine is theirs also. Do you now understand the treasury of hatred and of vengeance that has been heaping up from century to century in the indignant breast of Jacques Bonhomme? Do you understand that from age to age the fathers bequeathed this hatred to their children as the only heritage left to them by servitude? Do you understand that the vassal has a frightful account to settle with his seigneur? Do you understand how, in his turn, Jacques Bonhomme has no mercy and no pity? Do you, finally, understand that if at this moment, instead of fighting you, I were to kill you like a wolf caught in a trap, the act would be just? You have but one life, but innumerable are the lives of the Gauls taken by you, and much larger yet those taken by your class!"