The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn

by Eugène Sue

  CHAPTER XV.

  THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER.

  The mysterious chamber into which Marik Lebrenn now for the first timeintroduced his son, his daughter and George Duchene, presented, as faras exterior appearance went, nothing extraordinary, except that it waskept always lighted by a pendant lamp of antique workmanship, after thefashion of certain consecrated sanctuaries. And was not that spot thesanctuary of pious reminiscences, of the traditions, often heroic, ofthat plebeian family? Under the lamp the merchant's children saw a largecloth-covered table, on which stood a casket of bronze. Around thecasket and musty with centuries, lay a number of articles, some of whichdated back to the very furthest antiquity, and the most recent of whichwere the galley-slave's ring, which the merchant had brought with himfrom Rochefort, and the casque of the Count of Plouernel.

  "My children," said Lebrenn in an impressive voice, indicating thehistoric curios gathered upon the table, "behold the relics of ourfamily. Around each of these articles clusters some memory, some name,some deed, some date of interest to us. The same as when our descendantswill have the narrative of my experience, written by me, the casque ofMonsieur Plouernel and the galley-slave's ring that I brought with mefrom prison will possess their own historic significance. It is in thismanner that almost every generation, of the many of whom we are linealdescendants, has for now nearly two thousand years furnished itscontribution and tribute to this collection."

  "During so many centuries, father!" said Sacrovir with profoundastonishment, and looking at his sister and brother-in-law.

  "Yon will later learn, my children, how these relics came down to us.They do not fill much space, as you may notice. With the exception ofMonsieur Plouernel's casque and the sword of honor bestowed upon myfather at the close of last century, all these articles can be lockedup, as they have often been, in that bronze casket--the tabernacle ofour family archives, that sometimes lay concealed in some sequesteredplace, and was often left there for safety during long years, untilbetter days dawned upon its then possessor."

  Lebrenn then took up from the table the first of these fragments of thepast, which lay ranged in chronological order. It was a piece of goldjewelry, blackened with age, and shaped like a sickle. A movable ring,attached to the handle, indicated that the jewel was meant to be wornfrom a chain or suspended from a belt.

  "This little gold sickle, my children," Lebrenn proceeded to explain,"is a druid emblem. It is the oldest souvenir we possess of our family.It dates back to the year 57 before Jesus Christ, that is to say,nineteen hundred years ago."

  "And did any of our forefathers wear that jewel, father?" asked Velleda.

  "Yes, my child," answered Lebrenn with deep emotion. "She who wore itwas young as you--and gifted with a most angelic heart and proudestcourage withal! But why anticipate the history of the relic? You willread that narrative of our family in this manuscript," added Lebrenn,pointing to a booklet which lay beside the gold sickle. The booklet,like all the older ones of those that were exhibited upon the table,consisted of a large number of oblong strips of tanned skin,[11] which,once sewed together by the ends so as to present the appearance of along and narrow band, were later, for the sake of greater convenience,ripped apart and fastened together in the shape of a small tome coveredwith black shagreen, on the face of which, in letters of silver, was theinscription:

  YEAR 57 B. C.

  "But father," said Sacrovir, "I see upon the table a booklet, very muchlike this one, lying beside each of the articles that you have referredto."

  "Because, my children, each of these relics, coming from some one of themembers of our family, is accompanied by a manuscript, written byhimself, and relating his own life, often that of his relatives also."

  "Why! Father!" exclaimed Sacrovir more and more amazed. "Thesemanuscripts--"

  "Have all been written by some ancestor of ours. Does that astonish you,my children? It is hard, I presume, for you to understand how an obscurefamily can possess its own chronicles, as if it were of some ancientroyal lineage! Besides, you are naturally wondering how these chroniclescould follow one another without interruption, from century to century,for nearly two thousand years, down to our own days."

  "Indeed, father," said the young man, "that does seem most extraordinaryto me."

  "You think that verges on the improbable, do you not?" asked themerchant.

  "No, father," Velleda hastened to explain, "seeing you say it is so. Butit certainly justifies us in wondering."

  "I should first of all inform you, my children, that the custom oftransmitting family traditions from generation to generation, be itorally or in writing, has ever been one of the most characteristic withour forefathers, the Gauls, and was observed with peculiar religiousnessby the Gauls of Brittany, by them more than by any others. Every family,however obscure it might be, had its own traditions, while in the otherlands of Europe the habit was observed but rarely even among Princes andKings. In order to convince you of this," added the merchant, takingfrom the table a small old book that seemed to date from the earliestdays of the printing press, "I shall quote to you a passage translatedfrom one of the most antique works of Brittany, the authority of whichis unquestioned in the world of learning."

  Marik Lebrenn read as follows:

  "'Among the Bretons the most obscure people know their forefathers, andpreserve the memory of their full ancestral line, back to the remotestages, and they state it in this way, for instance: _Eres_, the son of_Theodrik_--son of _Enn_--son of _Aecle_--son of _Cadel_--son of_Roderik_ the Great or the Chief. And so on to the end. Their ancestorsare, to them, the object of a positive cult, and the wrongs which theypunish most severely are those done to their kin. Their revenge is crueland sanguinary, and they punish, not the fresh wrongs only, but also theoldest done to their kin, which they keep steadily in mind so long asnot revenged.' So you see, my children," observed Lebrenn, laying thebook down upon the table, "that explains our family chronicle.Unfortunately, you will learn that some of our ancestors have been buttoo faithful to this custom of pursuing vengeance from generation togeneration. More than once in the course of the ages, the Plouernels--"

  "What! Father!" cried George. "Have the ancestors of the Count ofPlouernel been, occasionally, the enemies of our family?"

  "Yes, children, you will see it. But let us not anticipate events. Youwill readily understand that, if our fathers were from time immemorialin the habit of handing down a grudge from generation to generation,they necessarily handed down, along with the grudge, the cause therefor,besides the leading events of each generation. Thus it happens that ourarchives are found written from age to age, down to our own days."

  "You are right, father," agreed Sacrovir; "that custom explains what atfirst seemed extraordinary to us."

  "In a minute I shall give you, my children," the merchant proceeded toexplain, "some further information regarding the language used in thesemanuscripts. I must first bespeak your attention for these pious relics,which will make clear to you many things that you will run across in themanuscripts. This gold sickle," added the merchant, replacing the jewelupon the table, "is, as you see, the symbol of manuscript Number 1,dated the year 57 before Jesus Christ. You will learn that that epochwas to our family, free at the time, an epoch of happy prosperity, ofvirile virtues, of proud principles. It was, alas! the close of abeautiful day. Frightful disasters came upon its heels--slavery, tortureand death." After a moment's silence during which the merchant remainedsteeped in thought, he resumed: "Each of these manuscripts will informyou, century by century, concerning the life of our ancestors."

  For several minutes the eyes of the children of Marik Lebrenn wanderedover the mementoes of the past lying on the table. Their eyes restedoccasionally with greedy curiosity upon one object or another. Theycontemplated them in silence, and no less moved than their father.

  Attached to the little gold sickle was, as Marik Lebrenn had stated, amanuscript bearing the date of the year 57 before Jesus Christ.

 
To manuscript Number 2, dated the year 56 before Jesus Christ, wasattached a little brass bell, very much like the bells which to thisday are attached to the necks of cattle in Brittany. The bell,accordingly, was at least nineteen hundred years old.

  To manuscript Number 3, bearing the date of the year 28 before JesusChrist, was attached a fragment of an iron collar, or carcan, corrodedwith rust, and on which the outlines of certain Roman letters could bedeciphered, cut into the iron:

  SERVUS SUM--(I am the slave).

  As a matter of course the name of the slave's owner was on the missingfragment. The carcan must have been at least eighteen hundred andseventy-seven years old.

  To manuscript Number 4, which was dated the year 32 of our era, wasattached a little silver cross from which hung a tiny little chain ofthe same metal. Both seemed to have been blackened by fire. The littlecross was eighteen hundred and seventeen years old.

  To manuscript Number 5, dated the year 296 of our era, was attached amassive copper ornament that once formed part of the top of a casque andrepresented a lark with wings partly distended. This fragment of acasque was fifteen hundred and fifty-three years old.

  To manuscript Number 6, dated the year 550 of our era, was attached thehilt of an iron dagger, black with the mould of ages. On one of itssides could be seen the word:

  GHILDE

  on the other the following two words in the Celtic and Gallic tonguesrespectively--very much resembling the Breton of our own days:

  AMINTIAICH (Friendship) COMMUNITEZ (Community)

  The poniard's hilt was every bit of thirteen hundred years old.

  To manuscript Number 7, dated the year 615 of our era, a rusty brandingneedle was attached. This article was fully twelve hundred andthirty-four years old.

  To manuscript Number 8, dated the year 737 of our era, an abbatialcrosier was attached. It was of chiseled silver and bore evidence ofonce having been gilded over. The name _Meroflede_ could be decipheredamid the exquisitely wrought ornamentation of the relic. The crosier waseleven hundred and twelve years old.

  To manuscript Number 9, dated the year 811, two pieces of Carlovingianmoney were attached. Their reverse bore the effigy of Charlemagne, stillrecognizable. One of the coins was of copper, the other of silver. Theywere held together by an iron wire. The two coins were ten hundred andthirty-eight years old.

  To manuscript Number 10, dated the year 912, was attached a barbed ironarrow head. The arrow-head was nine hundred and thirty-seven years old.

  To manuscript Number 11, dated the year 999, was attached a fragment ofan infant's skull. The child, judging by the size and structure of thefragment, must have been between eight and ten years of age. Theexternal wall of the fragment bore, graven in the Gallic tongue, thewords:

  FIN-AL-BRED (The End of the World).

  The skull was eight hundred and fifty years old.

  To manuscript Number 12, dated the year 1096, was attached a ribbedwhite shell, of the sort that is seen on the pictures of pilgrims'mantles. The frail shell was seven hundred and fifty-three years old.

  To manuscript Number 13, dated the year: 1208, was attached a pair ofiron pincers, an instrument of torture, the tongues of which wereserrated so that the teeth fitted exactly into one another. Thisinstrument of torture was six hundred and forty-one years old.

  To manuscript Number 14, dated the year 1358, was attached a little irontrevet of about twenty centimeters in diameter, that looked as if it,had been almost fretted out of shape by fire. The trevet was fourhundred and ninety-nine years old.

  To manuscript Number 15, bearing the date of the year 1413, was attachedan executioner's knife with a horn handle, the blade of which was eatenup with rust and partly broken. The knife was four hundred andthirty-six years old.

  To manuscript Number 16, bearing the date of the year 1535, was attacheda little pocket Bible, belonging to the first years of the printingpress. The cover of the book was almost wholly burnt up, likewise thecorners of the pages, as if the Bible had been exposed to fire. Severalpages also bore stains that must have been of blood. The Bible wasthree hundred and fourteen years old.

  To manuscript Number 17, dated the year 1673, was attached the iron headof a heavy blacksmith's hammer, on which, engraved in the Breton tongue,could be read the words:

  EZ-LIBR (To be free).

  The hammer was one hundred and seventy-six years old.

  To manuscript Number 18, dated the year 1794, was attached a sword ofhonor, with hilt of gilded copper bearing, the following inscriptionengraved on the blade:

  JOHN LEBRENN HAS DESERVED WELL OF THE FATHERLAND.

  Finally, unaccompanied by any manuscript, and only bearing the dates of1848 and 1849, came the last two articles that made up the collection:

  The dragoon's casque which was presented in February of 1848 to MarikLebrenn by the Count of Plouernel, and the iron ring that the merchanthad worn in the galleys of Rochefort that very year of 1849.

  It can easily be imagined with what pious respect and burning curiositythese fragments of the past were examined by the merchant's family. Heinterrupted the pensive silence that his children preserved during theexamination, and resumed:

  "Accordingly, as you see, my children, these manuscripts relate thehistory of our plebeian family for the last two thousand years.Accordingly, also, this history could be called the history of thepeople, of their faults, their excesses, occasionally even of theircrimes Slavery, ignorance and misery often deprave man in degradinghim. But thanks be to God, in our family, the bad acts are rare, while,on the other hand, numerous have been the patriotic and heroic deeds ofour Gallic forefathers and mothers during their long struggle againstthe Roman and then the Frankish conquest. Yes, the men and thewomen--for, often will you see in the pages of these narratives that thewomen, like worthy daughters of Gaul, vie with the men in abnegation andintrepidity. Many a one of these touching and heroic figures will remaincherished and glorified in your memory as the saints of our domesticlegend. Now, one word concerning the language used in these manuscripts.As you know, my children, your mother and I have ever kept at your side,since your earliest years, a female servant from our own country, inorder that you might learn to speak the Breton dialect at the same timethat you learned to speak French; furthermore, your mother and I everkept you familiar with that dialect by using it frequently inconversation with you."

  "Yes, father."

  "Well, my son," said Marik Lebrenn to Sacrovir, "in teaching you theBreton tongue I had above all in mind--obedient, moreover, to atradition in our family, according to which it never forgot its mothertongue--to enable you to read these manuscripts."

  "Are they, then, written in the Breton tongue, father?" asked Velleda.

  "Yes, my children. The Breton tongue is none other than the Celtic orGallic that was once spoken all over Gaul before the Roman and Frankishconquests. With the exception of a few changes that have taken place inthe course of the centuries, it has preserved its purity in ourBrittany, down to our own days. Of all the provinces of Gaul, Brittanywas the last to submit to the Frankish Kings who issued from theconquest. Yes, let us never forget the proud and heroic motto of ourfathers, conquered and despoiled though they were by the invader: _Westill preserve our name, our tongue, our faith._ Now, then, my children,after two thousand years of struggles and strifes, our family haspreserved its name, its tongue and its faith. We call ourselves_Lebrenn_, we speak Gallic, and I have raised you in the faith of ourfathers, in the faith of the immortality of the soul and of thecontinuity of existence which enables us to look upon death as a changeof habitation, nothing more--a sublime faith the morality of which,taught by the druids, was summed up in precepts like these: _Adore God;do no harm; exercise charity; he is pure and holy who performs celestialworks and pure._ Fortunately, my children, we are not the only ones whopreserved the sublime dogma of the continuity of life. Armand Barbes,one of the bravest militants of the democracy, when taken prisoner andsubsequently condemned to death un
der the reign of Louis Philippe,awaited the hour of his execution with religious serenity of soul. Theserenity which he preserved he drew from his faith in the perpetuity oflife, a fundamental principle in our creed. I can do no better, myfriends, than to read to you a page from the writings of Armand Barbes,the page which he dedicated to the memory of Godefroid Cavaignac, thepublicist of the democracy, entitled: 'Two days of a death sentence.'"

  Lebrenn read:

  "It was the 12th of June, 1839. After four days' deliberation the Court of Peers notified me of its sentence. According to the usage in such cases, it was the registrar who brought me the sentence, and the honorable Cauchy thought it his duty to add to his message a little puff for the Roman Catholic and Apostolic religion. I answered him that I had my own religion and believed in God, but that that was no reason why I should be in need of the consolations of a priest, whosoever he might be. I requested him to be kind enough to inform his masters that I was ready to die, and that I only hoped that when their last hour approached their soul might be as tranquil as mine.

  "Armand Barbes then proceeds to tell how, instinctively inspired, andled by the approach of his last hour to a plane of lofty thought, herecalled with thrilling gratitude the source from which he drew hissupreme tranquility in the face of death. He then says further:

  "One day I read in the _New Encyclopedia_ the superb article on _Heaven_ by John Raynaud. Passing by the irrefutable arguments with which he incidentally demolishes the heaven and hell of the Catholics, his leading thought, as taught by the druid faith, of deriving from the law of progress the infinite series of our lives, as they continuously progress in worlds that gravitate ever nearer and nearer to God, seemed to me to satisfy at once all our multiple aspirations. Do not the moral sense, the imagination, do not our desires, does not everything find there its place? Nevertheless, carried away, while I read the article, by the pre-occupations of an active republican, I gave at the time little thought to details; all I did with these was to deposit them, so to speak, undigested in my heart. But later, when picked up wounded on the street I inhabited a prison cell with the scaffold in perspective, I drew them out of the place where I held them in reserve as a last store of wealth the value of which the time had come for me to appreciate in full--and these thoughts rose naturally to my mind during my watches, already a victim bound for the executioner, during these solitary hours when I kept watch in the solemn night of death.

  "I beg pardon of John Raynaud, the elegant encyclopedist, for my having turned into a vile plummet, in order to meet the exigency of the moment, the pure gold of his philosophy. Thus, after confirming with some preliminary reasoning my belief in the immortality of the soul, meseems a sublime Jacob's ladder unrolled before my eyes, with its foot resting on the earth to climb heavenward, eternally, from star to star, from sphere to sphere! The cart, this planet upon which I had spent thirty years, looked to me to be one of the innumerable specks where man makes his first landing in life--whence he begins to climb upwards before God, and, when the phenomenon which we call death is accomplished, man, drawn by the attraction of progress, is forthwith re-born in a superior star with a new expansion of his being.

  "So you see, my children, what fortitude of soul the dogma of theperpetuity of life is able to impart. Let us, then, follow the exampleof our forefathers; let us follow in the footsteps of their belief; andlet us, like them, _preserve our name, our tongue and our faith_."

  "We shall not fail in that pledge, father," answered Velleda.

  "We shall show neither less courage nor less persistence than ourancestors," added Sacrovir. "Oh, how I shall be thrilled with ecstasywhen I read those venerated lines which they have traced! But is thechirography of the Celtic or Gallic language the same exactly as theBreton, which we are accustomed to read, father?"

  "No, my boy. Since a number of centuries back, the Gallic chirography,which originally was the same as the Greek, began to be little by littlemodified in the course of time, and finally fell into disuse. But mygrandfather, a working compositor, learned and well lettered,transcribed into modern Breton all the manuscripts that were in Gallic.Thanks to his work, you will be able to read those manuscripts asfluently as you read the legends that our good Gildas loves so well, andwhich, composed eight or nine hundred years ago, are still current inour villages of Brittany, printed on brown paper."

  "Father!" exclaimed Sacrovir. "One more question. Did our family alwaysinhabit our beloved Brittany during all these centuries?"

  "No--not always, as you will see in these narratives. The conquest, thewars, the rude vicissitudes to which a family like ours was exposed inthose evil days, often compelled our forefathers to leave their natalsoil,--sometimes because they were carried away slaves or prisoners intoother provinces; sometimes in order to escape death; other times, again,in order to gain their bread; still other times in obedience to foreignlaws; and, finally, occasionally driven thereto by the whims of fate.Nevertheless, few are our forefathers who did not make a certain piouspilgrimage, as I have made myself, and as you, in turn will make on thefirst of January following the year of your majority, that is nextJanuary 1."

  "And why on that particular day, father?"

  "Because the first day of each new year has ever been a solemn day withthe Gauls."

  "And in what does the pilgrimage consist?"

  "You will proceed to the druid stones of Karnak, near Auray."

  "Indeed, I have heard it said, father, that that assemblage of giganticgranite blocks, found down to to-day, ranked in a mysterious fashion,dates back to the remotest antiquity."

  "Already two thousand years and more ago, my boy, it was not known atwhat epoch--an epoch that is lost in the night of the past--the stonesof Karnak were raised and put in place."

  "Oh! father, one is seized as with a vertigo in thinking of the age thatthose monumental stones must have."

  "Only God knows it, my friends! If we are to judge of their future bytheir past, myriads of generations will yet succeed one another at thefeet of those gigantic monuments, which seem to defy the tooth of time,and upon which the eyes of our fathers have so often rested from centuryto century in pious meditation."

  "And why did they make the pilgrimage, father?"

  "Because the cradle of our family, the fields and the homesteads of thefirst of our ancestors of whom these manuscripts make mention, weresituated near the stones of Karnak. As you will see, that ancestor wasnamed _Joel, en Brenn an Lignez an Karnak_, which, as you know, means_Joel, the chief of the tribe of Karnak_. He was the chief or patriarch,chosen by his tribe, or by his clan, as the Scotch call it."[12]

  "Accordingly," interjected George Duchene, "your name, father, the nameof _Brenn_, means chief?"

  "Yes, my friend, that honorable appellation, attached to the name ofeach individual, to his baptismal name, as the saying is since theadvent of Christianity, has in the course of time been transformed intoa family name. The custom of family names does not begin to be generallyobserved among plebeian families until towards the Fourteenth orFifteenth Century. In earlier days, the son of the first of ourancestors, for instance, whom I mentioned to you, was called _Guilhern,mab eus an Brenn_--Guilhern, the son of the chief--then _Kirio_,grandson of the chief, and so on. In the course of time the wordsgrandson and great-grandson were suppressed, and the only name added tothe word Brenn, which was corrupted into Lebrenn, was the baptismal one.Accordingly, almost all the names taken from a trade--as _Carpenter_,_Smith_, _Baker_, _Weaver_, _Miller_, etc., etc.--have their origin insome manual occupation, the designation of which has been converted inthe course of time into a family appellation. These explanations mayseem trivial; they nevertheless attest a grave and painful fact--theabsence of a real family name with our brothers of the masses of thepeople. Alas! So long as they were slaves or serfs, could people who didnot belong
to themselves have a patronymic? Their masters dubbed themwith bizarre and grotesque nicknames, as one gives to a horse or a dogsuch names as suit his whim. When the slave was sold to a new master hewas dressed up in a new name. But, as you will see, in the measure that,thanks to their energetic and unflagging struggle, the oppressed arrivedat a less servile state, the consciousness of their dignity as humanbeings developed apace. When, finally, they could have a name of theirown and transmit the same to their children, however obscure, yet alwayshonorable, it was a sign that they were slaves no longer, nor yet serfs,although still steeped in wretchedness. The conquest of a proper, orfamily name, has been, by reason of the duties it imposes and the rightsthat it gives, one of the longest steps taken by our ancestors in thedirection of their complete emancipation. In the manuscripts that we areabout to read you will encounter an admirable sentiment of the Gallicnationality and of its religious faith--a sentiment all the moreirrepressible, all the more exaggerated, perhaps, by reason of the Romanand Frankish conquests being felt as galling yokes by those heroic menand women, who were so proud of their race and who carried theircontempt for death to the point of superhuman grandeur. Let us admirethem, let us emulate them in their ardent love for their country, intheir implacable hatred of oppression, in their belief in theprogressive continuity of life which delivers us from the _disease ofdeath_. But, while piously glorifying the past, let us continue, instep with the movement of mankind, to march towards the future. Let usapt forget that a New World began with Christianity. Unquestionably itsdivine spirit of fraternity, equality and freedom has been outrageouslybelied, trampled in the dirt, and persecuted since the first centuriesof its era by most of the Catholic bishops, who were themselves holdersof slaves, and were gorged with wealth that they wheedled from theconquering Franks, in return for the absolution of their abominablecrimes which the high clergy sold to them. It could be no otherwise thanthat our fathers, seeing the evangelical word smothered and impotent todeliver them, took matters into their own hands, rose in rebellion andin arms against the tyranny of the conquerors, and almost always, as youwill find proof in these manuscripts, where sermons only sufferedshipwreck, revolt secured some lasting concession. It happened obedientto the time-honored behest--_Help yourself, and heaven will help you_.Nevertheless, despite the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, thebreath of Christianity has passed over the world, and warms it more andmore with that sweet and tender warmth which, notwithstanding all itsgrandeur, the druidic faith of our ancestors was lacking in. Thusrejuvenated and completed, our old druid belief is bound to receive afresh impetus. It no doubt was a trying experience for us to undergo,the loss of even the name of our nationality, and to see the name of_France_ substituted for that of our old and illustrious Gaul by ahorde of ferocious conquerors.

  "No doubt the _Gallic Republic_ would sound no less pleasant to our earsthan the _French Republic_. But our first and immortal Republic hassufficiently cleansed the French name of whatever monarchic odor clungto it, by carrying its colors triumphantly over all the lands of Europe.Moreover, my friends," added the merchant with his habitual smile, "thesame thing happens to that old and brave Gaul as happened to her ownheroic women who rendered themselves illustrious under their husband'sname--although, to be sure, the marriage of Gaul with the Frank cameabout in a singularly forced manner."

  "I understand that, father," observed Velleda, also smiling. "The sameas many women sign their own family name beside the one they hold fromtheir husband, all the admirable deeds performed by our heroine under aname that was not her own should be signed--FRANCE, born GAUL."

  "An excellent comparison," remarked Madam Lebrenn. "Our name mightchange, our race has remained our race."

  "And now," resumed Marik Lebrenn with deep emotion, "now that you areinitiated into the family tradition which founded our plebeian archives,do you, my children take the solemn pledge to perpetuate them, and tocause your children to follow your example? Do you, my son, and you, mydaughter, in default of him, pledge yourselves to register in allsincerity the deeds and events of your own lives, be they just orunjust, praiseworthy or blamable, to the end that the day when youdepart from this existence to another, the narrative of your own lifemay increase our family chronicles, and that the inexorable sense ofjustice of our descendants may praise or condemn our memory, accordingas we shall have deserved?"

  "Yes, father--we swear!"

  "Well, then, Sacrovir, this day on which you have completed yourtwenty-first year, you are free, agreeable to our traditions, to readthese manuscripts. We shall begin the reading this very evening, in afamily circle, and continue it from day to day. In order that George mayparticipate, we shall translate into French, as we read."

  Marik Lebrenn, his wife and George being gathered together that evening,Sacrovir Lebrenn began the readings, starting with the first manuscript,entitled: "The Gold Sickle."