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

"Hear ye, hear ye, seigneurs and knights, and people of all estates: – our sovereign seigneur and master, by the grace of God, John, King of the French, forbids under penalty of life and of forfeiture of goods, all speaking, crying out, coughing, expectorating or uttering and giving of any signs during the combat."

The profoundest silence ensues. One of the bars is lowered, and the Sire of Nointel, cased in a brilliant steel armor tipped with gold ornaments, rides into the arena. Mounted on a richly caparisoned charger that he causes to prance and caracole with ease, he reins in before the canopy of Gloriande, and the damosel, taking from her own neck the necklace of gold strands, ties it to the iron of the lance that her betrothed lowers before her. By that act he is accepted by the lady as her knight of honor, a quality by which he is to exercise sovereign surveillance over the combatants, and if the point of the weapon from which hangs the necklace touch any of the jousters, he must immediately withdraw from the combat. In giving her necklace to her knight, Gloriande's shoulders and bosom remain naked, and she receives without blushing the testimonies of admiration showered upon her by the knights in her vicinity, whose libertine praises savor strongly of the obscene crudities peculiar to the language of those days. After having made the tour of the field, during which he displays anew his skill in horsemanship, the Sire of Nointel returns to the foot of the platform where the queen of the tournament is seated, and raises his lance. The clarions forthwith resound, the bars are let down at the opposite sides of the arena, and each gives passage to a troop of knights armed cap-a-pie, visors down, recognizable only by their emblems or the color of their shields and the banners of their lances. The two sets, mounted on horses covered with iron, remain for an instant motionless like equestrian statues, at the extremities of the arena. The lances of these gallants, six feet long and stripped of their iron, are, in the parlance of tourneys, "courteous"; their thrust, no wise dangerous, can have for its only effect to roll the ill-mounted combatant off his horse. The Sire of Nointel consults the radiant Gloriande with the eye. With a majestic air she waves her embroidered handkerchief, and immediately her knight of honor utters three times the consecrated formula: "Let them go! Let them go! Let them go!"

The two sets break loose; the horses are put to a gallop; and, lances in rest, they rush to the center of the lists, where they dash against one another, horses and riders, with an incredible clatter of hardware. In the shock the larger number of lances fly into splinters. The disarmed tilters thus declare themselves vanquished, and their armor and mounting belong by right to the vanquisher. Accordingly, these tourneys are as much a game of hazard as is a game of dice. Not a few renowned tilters, hankering after florins more than after a puerile glory, derive large revenues from their skill in these ridiculous jousts; almost always do the adversaries whom they have overcome ransom their arms and horses with considerable sums. At a signal of the Sire of Nointel, a few minutes' truce followed upon the disarming of two of the knights who rolled down upon the thick bed of sand that the ground is prudently covered with. There is nothing so pitifully grotesque as the appearance of these disarmed gallants. Their valets raise them up in almost one lump within their thick iron shell that impedes their movements, and with legs stiff and apart, they reach the barrier steaming in perspiration, seeing that, in order to soften the pressure, these noble combatants wear under their armor a skin shirt and hose thickly padded with horse's hair. The vanquished abandon the lists in disgrace, while the vanquishers, after prancing over the arena, approach the platform where the queen of the tournament is enthroned. There they lower their lances to her in token of gallant homage. The charmed Gloriande answers them with a condescending smile and they leave the lists in triumph. The remaining knights now continue the struggle on foot and with swords – swords no less "courteous" than their lances, without either point or edge, so that these valiant champions skirmish with steel bars three feet and a half long, and they carry themselves heroically in a combat that is all the less perilous, seeing that they are protected against all possible danger by their padded undergarments laid over by an impenetrable armor.

At a fresh signal from the Sire of Nointel, a furious conflict is engaged in by the remaining combatants. One of them slips and falls over backward and remains motionless, as little able to rise as a tortoise laid on its back. Another of the Cæsars has his sword broken in two in his own hands. Only two combatants now remain, and continue the struggle with rage. The one carries a green buckler emblazoned with an argent lion, the other a red buckler emblazoned with a gold dolphin. The knight of the argent lion deals with his sword such a hard blow upon his adversary's casque, that, dazed by the shock, the latter falls heavily upon his haunches on the sand. The great conqueror superbly enjoyed his triumph by proudly contemplating his vanquished adversary, ridiculously seated at his feet; and, responding to the enthusiastic acclamations of the assembled nobility, he approached the throne of the queen of the tourney, bent one knee, and raised his visor. After placing a rich collar around the conqueror's neck in token of his prowess, Gloriande stooped down, and, following the custom of the time, deposited a loud and long kiss upon his lips. This duty, attached to her distinguished office, Gloriande fulfilled without blushing, and with an off-handedness that denoted ample experience. Thanks to her beauty, the young lady of Chivry had been often before chosen queen of tournaments. The clarions announced the victory of the knight of the argent lion, who, strutting proudly with the trophy around his neck, placed his right hand on his hip, walked around the arena, and marched out at the barriers.

These first passages of arms were followed by an interval during which the valets of the Sire of Nointel, carrying cups, plates, and flagons of gold and silver, that glistened in the dazzled eyes of the peasants, served the noble company on the platform with spiced wines, refreshments and choice pastries, ample honor being done by all to the munificence of the Sire of Nointel.

CHAPTER IV.

THE JUDICIAL COMBAT

The seigneurs, their wives and daughters on the platforms had just enjoyed the refection, while commenting upon the incidents of the tourney, when a shudder ran through the crowd of peasants and bourgeois massed outside of the barriers. Until then and while witnessing the jousts and the passages of arms they had been animated with curiosity only. In the combat, which it was murmured among them was to follow these harmless struggles, the populace felt themselves concerned. It was to be a combat to the death between a vassal and a knight, the latter on horseback and in full armor, the vassal on foot, dressed in his blouse and armed with a stick. Even the more timid and brutalized ones among the vassals revolted at the thought of so crassly unequal a conflict, in which one of their class was inevitably destined to death. It was, accordingly, amidst a silence laden with anxiety and suppressed anger that one of the heralds uttered three times from the center of the arena the consecrated formula: "Let the appellant enter!"

The knight Gerard of Chaumontel, now summoned to the trial of a judicial combat against the accusation of theft made by Mazurec, issued from one of the contiguous tents and entered the arena on horseback, in full armor. His buckler hangs from his neck; his visor is up; in his hand he carries a little image of St. James, for whom the pious knight seemed to entertain a peculiar devotion. His two seconds, on horseback like himself, ride beside him. With him they make the round of the arena while the fair Gloriande says to her father disdainfully: "What a shame for the nobility to see a knight reduced, in order to prove his innocence, to do combat with a varlet!"

"Oh, my daughter! What evil days these are that we live in!" answered the aged seigneur with a growl. "Those accursed king's jurists are crossing their pencils over all our rights under the impertinent pretext of legalizing them. Was not a decree of the court of the seneschal of Beauvoisis requisite in order to authorize our friend Conrad to exercise his seigniorial right over a miserable female serf in revolt?" Remembering, however, that his daughter was the betrothed of the Sire of Nointel, the Count of Chivry stopped short. Gloriande surmised the cause of her father's reticence and said to him with a haughtiness that verged on anger: "Do you think that I am jealous of such as her? Can I look upon these female serfs as rivals?"

"No, no; I am not placing such an insult upon you, my daughter … but after all, the rebellion of that female vassal is as novel as it is monstrous. Oh, the spirit of revolt among the populace, although partly broken to-day, has spread into our domains and has infested our peasants also; and that is taken by the crown for a pretext to add to our troubles by encroaching upon our rights, claiming that they must be first sanctioned by the jurists. A curse upon all reform kings!"

"But, father, our rights remain."

"Blood and thunder, my daughter! Do our privileges stand in need of confirmation by the men of the gown? Does not our class hold its rights by the right of our ancestors' swords? No, no, the crown aims at monopolizing all rights, and to be the sole exploiter of the plebs."

"Have not the kings," observed another knight, "taken from us one of our best sources of revenue, the minting of money in our seigniories, under the pretext that we coined false money? The devil take kings who hold up law! May hell consume the gentry of the pen!"

"Blood and thunder! It is enough to make one's blood boil in his veins," cried the Count of Chivry. "Is there in the whole world any worse money than the king's. False coiners have been quartered who are less thievish than our King John and his predecessors."

"Let that good prince look elsewhere than here for support," put in another knight. "The truce with England will soon expire. If war breaks out anew, King John will see neither a man nor a gold piece out of my domain. He may, for all I care, leave his carcass on the field of battle."

"Oh, gentlemen," said Gloriande gulping down a yawn, "how uninteresting is your conversation! Let us rather talk about the Court of Love that is soon to hold its sessions in Clermont, and for which I shall order the most skillful hairdressers from Paris. I am also expecting a Lombard who is to bring me magnificent silks, woven with gold and silver, and which I shall wear during the solemnity."

"And what do you expect to pay all those fine things with?" cried the Count of Chivry. "How are we to meet the expenses of brilliant tourneys and the sumptuous displays of the Court of Love if, on the one side, the King ruins us, and, on the other, Jacques Bonhomme refuses to work?"

"Oh! Oh! Dear father!" replied the fair Gloriande, laughing aloud. "Jacques Bonhomme will meekly bend the neck. At the first crack of the whip of one of our hunters you will see those varlets lie down flat upon their faces. And mind you," added the young lady, redoubling her laughter, "just turn your eyes to that bugaboo of a Jacques Bonhomme, does he not look redoubtable?" and she pointed with her finger at Mazurec the Lambkin, who, at the second call of the herald, had stepped into the arena accompanied by his two seconds, Jocelyn the Champion and Adam the Devil. Mazurec, dressed in his "blaude," the ancient Gallic blouse, made of coarse cloth and of the same fabric as his hose, wore on his head a woolen cap while his wooden shoes partly hid his bare feet. Jocelyn, his second, held in his hand a stout stick of sorb, four feet long, and freshly cut by himself in a neighboring thicket, with an eye to the fact that, when fresh, the sorb wood is heavy and does not easily break. The appellee, as well as the appellant, in the judicial battle were required to make the round of the arena before engaging in combat. The serf filled the formality in slow and measured steps, accompanied by his two seconds.

"My brave fellow," Jocelyn said to Mazurec, "do not forget my advice, and you stand a chance of worsting your noble robber, for all that he may be on horseback and armed cap-a-pie."

"I'd as lief die," answered the serf, marching dejectedly between his two seconds with his head down and his eyes fixed: "When I saw Aveline this morning it was as if a knife had entered my heart," he added sobbing. "Oh, I am a lost man!"

"By the navel of the Pope! No feebleness," replied Jocelyn with emphasis and alarmed at the despondent voice of his principal. "Where is your courage? This morning from a lambkin you became a wolf."

"To now live with my poor wife would be a daily torture to me," murmured the serf. "I would rather the knight killed me outright."

Thus conversing, half the field had been covered by Mazurec in company with his seconds. The latter, more and more alarmed at the unhappy young man's despondency, were at that moment passing at the foot of the amphitheater where the nobility of the neighborhood were seated with the fair Gloriande in their midst. Casting an expressive look at the champion, Adam the Devil nudged Mazurec with his elbow and said to him in a low voice: "Take a look at the betrothed of our seigneur… I swear she's handsome!.. That will make a pretty wedding! Hm!.. Won't the two lovers be happy?" At these words, which fell like molten lead upon the bleeding wound in his heart, the vassal shook convulsively. "Take a good look at the handsome young lady," proceeded Adam the Devil. "See how happy she is in her rich clothes. Do you hear her laugh?.. Go to! No doubt she's laughing at you and at your wife, who was violated last night by our seigneur… But do take a look at the beauty! I wager she is jeering at you."

Drawn from his dejection, and rage mounting to his heart, Mazurec brusquely raised his head. For an instant his eyes fiery and red with weeping, fastened on the betrothed of his seigneur, the haughty damosel, resplendent in attire and personal beauty, radiant with happiness, and surrounded by brilliant knights, who, courting her smiles, crowded near her.

"At this hour," the caustic voice of Adam the Devil whispered to the ear of Mazurec, "your own bride is drinking her shame and her tears. What! In order to avenge Aveline and yourself would you not make an attempt to kill the nobleman who robbed you!.. That thief is the cause of all your misfortune."

"My stick!" cried the vassal leaping forward, transported with rage, at the same instant that one of the sergeants-at-arms hurried by to notify him that it was not allowed to stop on the arena and look at the ladies, but that he was to betake himself to one of the tents in order, before the combat, to take the customary oaths with the vicar of Nointel. Now inflamed with hatred and rage, Mazurec quickly followed the sergeant-at-arms, while, walking more slowly, Jocelyn said to Adam the Devil:

"You must have suffered a great deal in your lifetime … I overheard you a minute ago. You know how to fire hatred – "

"Three years ago," broke in the serf with a wild look, "I killed my wife with an axe, and yet I loved her to distraction – "

"Was that at Bourcy – near Senlis?"

"Who told you of it? How come you to know it?"

"I happened to ride through the village on the day of the murder. You preferred to see your wife dead rather than disgraced by your episcopal seigneur."

"Exactly. That's the way I felt on the subject."

"But how did you become a serf of this seigniory?"

"After I killed my wife, I kept in hiding for a month in the forest of Senlis, where I lived on roots; thereupon I came to this country. Caillet gave me shelter. I offered my services as a butcher to the superintendent of the seigniory of Nointel. After the lapse of a year I was numbered among the vassals of the domain. I remained here out of friendship for Caillet."

During this conversation between his two seconds Mazurec had arrived near the tent where he, as well as the Knight of Chaumontel, was to take the customary oath. Clad in his sacerdotal robes and holding a crucifix in his hands, the vicar addressed the serf and the knight.

"Appellant and appellee, do not ye shut your eyes to the danger to which you expose your souls in combating for a bad cause. If either of you wishes to withdraw and place himself at the mercy of his seigneur and the King, it is still time. It will soon be too late. One of you is about to cross the gates of the other world. You will there find seated a God who is merciless to the perjurer. Appellant and appellee, think of that. All men are equally weak before the tribunal of divine justice. The eternal kingdom is not entered in armor. Is either of you willing to recede?"

"I shall maintain unto death that this knight has robbed me; he has caused my misfortunes; if God is just, I shall kill this man," answered Mazurec in a voice of concentrated rage.

"And I," cried the knight of Chaumontel, "swear to God that that vassal lies in his throat, and outrageously slanders me. I shall prove his imposture with the intercession of our Lord and all his saints, especially with the good help of St. James, my blessed patron."

"Aye," put in Jocelyn, "and above all with the good help of your armor, your lance and your sword. Infamous man! To battle on horseback, helmet on head, cuirass on body, sword at your side, lance in your hand, against a poor man on foot and armed only with a stick. Aye, you behave like a coward. Cowards are thieves; consequently, you stole the purse of my principal!"

"How dare you address me in such words!" cried the knight of Chaumontel. "Such a common fellow as you! Miserable vagabond! Intolerable criminal!"

"Heavens be praised! He utters insults!" exclaimed Jocelyn with delight. "Oh, Sir thief, if you are not the most cowardly of two-legged hares, you will follow me on the spot behind yonder pavillion, or else I shall slap your ignoble scamp's face with the scabbard of my sword."

Livid with rage, Gerard of Chaumontel was, to the extreme joy of Jocelyn, about to accept the latter's challenge, when one of his seconds said to him:

"That bandit is trying to save his principal by provoking you to a fight. Fall not into the trap. Do not mind him, mind the vassal."

Taking this prudent advice, Gerard of Chaumontel contemptuously answered Jocelyn: "When arms in hand I shall have convicted this other varlet of imposture, I shall then consider whether you deserve that I accept your insolent challenge."

"You evidently desire to taste the scabbard of my sword," cried Jocelyn. "By heaven, I shall not deprive you of the dish; and if your hang-dog face does not redden with shame, it will redden under my slaps. Coward and felon – "

"Not another word, or I shall order one of my men to expel you from the arena," said the herald-at-arms to Jocelyn; "a second has no right to insult the adversary of his own principal."

Jocelyn realized that he would be compelled to yield to force, held his tongue, and cast a distracted look at Mazurec. The vicar of Nointel raised the crucifix and resumed in his nasal voice: "Appellant and appellee, do you and each of you still insist that your cause is just? Do you swear on the image of the Saviour of mankind?" and the vicar presented the crucifix to the knight, who took off his iron gauntlet and placing his hand upon the image of Christ, declared:

"My cause is just, I swear to God!"

"My cause is just," said in turn Mazurec; "and I take God for my witness; but let us combat quickly; oh, quickly!"

"Do you swear," proceeded the vicar, "that neither of you carries about his person either stone, or herb, or any other magic charm, amulet or incantation of the enemy of man?"

"I swear," said the knight.

"I swear," said Mazurec panting with rage. "Oh, how much time is lost!"

"And now, appellant and appellee," cried the herald-at-arms, "the lists are open to you. Do your duty."

The knight of Chaumontel seized his long lance and jumped upon his horse, which one of his seconds held for him, while Jocelyn, pale and deeply moved, said to Mazurec, while giving him his stick: "Courage!.. Follow my advice … I expect you will kill that coward … But one last word… It regards your mother … Did she never tell you the name of your father?"

"Never … as I told you this morning in prison. My mother always avoided speaking to me of my father."

"And her name was Gervaise?" asked Jocelyn pensively. "What was the color of her hair and eyes?"

"Her hair was blonde, her eyes black. Poor mother."

"And had she no other mark?"

"She had a small scar above her right eye-brow – "

The clarions sounded at this point. It was the signal for the judicial duel. Unable to restrain his tears, Jocelyn pressed Mazurec in his arms and said to him: "I may not at a moment like this reveal to you the cause of the double interest that you inspire me … My suspicions and hopes, perhaps, deceive me … But courage … Hit your enemy on the head."

"Courage!" put in Adam the Devil in an undertone. "In order to keep your blood boiling, think of your wife … remember the betrothed of your seigneur laughed at you… Kill the thief, and patience… It will some day be our turn to laugh at the noble damosel… Think above all of your wife … of her last nights shame and of your own… Remember that you have both been made forever unhappy, and fall to bravely upon that nobleman! Be brave… You have a cane, nails and teeth!"

Mazurec the Lambkin uttered a cry of rage and rushed into the lists at the moment when, in answer to a motion from the Sire of Nointel, the marshal of the tourney gave the signal for the combat to the appellant and appellee by calling three times the consecrated words: "Let them go!"

The noble spectators on the platform laughed in advance at the sorry discomfiture of Jacques Bonhomme; but among the plebeian crowd all hearts stopped beating with anxiety at this decisive moment. The knight of Chaumontel, a vigorous man, armed in full panoply, mounted on a tall charger covered with iron, and his long lance in rest, occupied the center of the arena, while Mazurec dashed to the spot barefoot, clad in his blouse and holding his stick in his hands. At sight of the serf, the knight, who, out of contempt for such an adversary, had disdained to lower his visor, put the spurs to his horse, and lowering his pointed iron-headed lance, charged upon the serf certain of transfixing him then and there, and then trampling over him with his horse. But Mazurec, mindful of Jocelyn's recommendations, avoided the lance thrust by suddenly letting himself down flat upon his face; and then, partly rising up at the moment when the horse was about to grind him under its hoofs, he dealt the animal two such heavy blows with his stick on its forelegs that the courser, stung with pain, reared, slipped its footing and almost fell over, while its rider was shaken out of position on the saddle.

"Felony!" cried the Sire of Nointel with indignation. "It is forbidden to strike a horse!"

"Well done, my brave woolen cap!" cried the populace on the outside, palpitating with suspense and clapping their hands, despite the strictness and severity of the royal ordinances which commanded profound silence to the spectators at a tourney.

"Fall to, Mazurec!" simultaneously cried Jocelyn and Adam the Devil. "Courage! Kill the nobleman! Kill him! Death to the thief!"

Mazurec rose, and seeing the knight out of poise and holding to the bow of his saddle, dropped his stick, picked up a fistful of sand, leaped upon the horse behind Gerard of Chaumontel, while the latter was seeking to regain his equilibrium, lost no time in clutching the knight around the neck with one hand, turned him half over backward, and with the other rubbed his eyes with the sand he had just picked up. Almost half-blinded, the noble robber dropped his lance and reins and sought to carry his hands to his eyes. Mazurec seeing the movement, put his arms around the knight, and, after a short struggle, succeeded in making him wholly lose his balance and tumble down to the ground, where both fell rolling on the arena, while the crowd of serfs, now considering the serf the victor over the knight, clapped their hands, stamped on the ground with joy and cried: "Victory for the woolen cap!"