by Eugène Sue
“Oh, Gauls! Ye proud souls, to whom death does not exist! Come, come! Remove your eyes from this earth; rise to the sublimity of heaven. See, see at your feet the abyss of space, dotted by these myriads of mortals as are all of us, and whom Teutates guides incessantly from the world that they have lived in towards the world that they are next to inhabit. Oh, what unknown worlds and marvelous we shall journey through, with our friends and our relatives that have preceded us, and with those whom we shall precede!”
“No, we are not mortals! Our infinite lives are numbered by myriads and myriads of centuries, just as are numbered by myriads of myriads the stars in the firmament — mysterious worlds, ever different, ever new, that we are successively to inhabit.”
“Let those fear death who, faithful to the false gods of the Greeks, the Romans and the Jews, believe that man lives only once, and that after that, stripped of his body, the happy or unhappy soul remains eternally in the same hell or the same paradise! Aye! They are bound to fear death who believe that when man quits this life he finds immobility in eternity.”
“We Gauls have the right knowledge of God. We hold the secret of death. Man is immortal both in body and soul. Our destiny from world to world is to see and learn, to the end that at each of these journeys, if we have led wicked and impure lives, we may purify ourselves and become better — still better if we have been just and good; and that thus, from new birth to new birth man rises incessantly towards perfection as endless as his life!”
“Happy, therefore, are the brave who voluntarily leave this world for other regions where they will ever see new and marvelous sights in the company of those whom they have loved! Happy, therefore, happy the brave Julyan! He is about to meet again with his friend, and with him see and know what none of us has yet seen or known, and what all of us shall see and know! Happy Julyan! Glory, glory to Julyan!”
And all the bards and all the druids, the female druids and the virgins of the Isle of Sen repeated in chorus to the sound of the harps and the cymbals:
“Happy, Happy Julyan! Glory to Julyan!”
And all the tribes, feeling the thrill of curiosity of death and certain that they all would eventually become acquainted with the marvels of the other worlds, repeated with their thousands of voices:
“Happy Julyan! Happy Julyan!”
Standing erect upon his pyre, his face radiant, and at his feet the body of Armel, Julyan raised his inspired eyes towards the brilliant moon, opened his blouse, drew his long knife, held up the nosegay of vervain to heaven with his left hand, and with his right firmly plunged his knife into his breast, uttering as he did so in a strong voice:
“Happy — happy am I. I am to join Armel!”
The pyre was immediately lighted. Julyan, raised for a last, time his nosegay of vervain to heaven, and then vanished in the midst of the blinding flames, while the chants of the bards and the clang of harp and cymbals resounded far and wide.
In their impatience to see and know the mysteries of the other world, a large number of men and women of the tribes rushed towards Julyan’s pyre for the purpose of departing with him and of offering to Hesus an immense hecatomb with their bodies. But Talyessin, the eldest of the druids, ordered the ewaghs to restrain and hold these faithful people back. He cried out to them:
“Enough blood has flown without that which is still to flow. But the hour has come when the blood of Gaul should flow only for freedom. The blood that is shed for liberty is also an agreeable offering to the All-Powerful.”
It was not without great effort that the ewaghs prevented the threatened rush of voluntary human sacrifices. The pyre of Julyan and Armel burned until the flames had nothing more to feed upon.
Again profound silence fell upon the crowd. Hena, the virgin of the Isle of Sen, had ascended the third pyre.
Joel and Margarid, their three sons, Guilhern, Albinik and Mikael, Guilhern’s wife and little children all of whom so dearly loved Hena, all her relatives and all the members of her tribe held one another in a close embrace, and said to one another:
“There is Hena.... There is our Hena!”
As the virgin of the Isle of Sen stood upon the pyre that was ornamented with white veils, greens and flowers, the crowds of the tribes cried in one voice: “How beautiful she is!... How holy!”
Joel writes it now down in all sincerity. His daughter Hena was indeed very beautiful as she stood erect on the pyre, lighted by the mellow light of the moon and resplendent in her black tunic, her blonde hair and her green chaplet, while her arms, whiter than ivory, embraced her gold harp!
The bards ordered silence.
The virgin of the Isle of Sen sang in a voice as pure as her own soul:
“The daughter of Joel and Margarid comes to offer gladly her life as a sacrifice to Hesus!
“Oh, All-Powerful! From the stranger deliver the soil of our father!
“Gauls of Britanny, you have the lance and the sword!
“The daughter of Joel and Margarid has but her blood. She offers it voluntarily to Hesus!
“Oh, Almighty God! Render invincible the Gallic lance and sword! Oh, Hesus, take my blood, it is yours ... save our sacred fatherland!”
The eldest of the female druids stood all this while on the pyre behind Hena with the sacred knife in her hand. When Hena’s chant was ended, the knife glistened in the air and struck the virgin of the Isle of Sen.
Her mother and her brothers, all the members of her tribe and her father Joel saw Hena fall upon her knees, cross her arms, turn her celestial face towards the moon, and cry with a still sonorous voice:
“Hesus ... Hesus ... by the blood that flows.... Mercy for Gaul!”
“Gauls, by this blood that flows, victory to our arms!”
Thus the sacrifice of Hena was consummated amidst the religious admiration of the tribes. All repeated the last words of the brave virgin:
“Hesus, mercy for Gaul!... Gauls, victory to our arms!”
Several young men, being fired with enthusiasm by the heroic example and beauty of Hena sought to kill themselves upon her pyre in order to be re-born with her. The ewaghs held them back. The flames soon enveloped the pyre and Hena vanished in their dazzling splendor. A few minutes later there was nothing left of the virgin and her pyre but a heap of ashes. A high wind sat in from the sea and dispersed the atoms. The virgin of the Isle of Sen, brilliant and pure as the flame that consumed her, had vanished into space to be re-born and to await beyond for the arrival of those whom she had loved.
The cymbals and harps resounded anew, and the chief of the bards struck up the chant:
“To arms, ye Gauls, to arms!
“The innocent blood of a virgin flowed for your sakes, and shall not yours flow for the fatherland! To arms! The Romans are here. Strike, Gauls, strike at their heads! Strike hard! See the enemy’s blood flow like a stream! It rises up to your knees! Courage! Strike hard! Gauls, strike the Romans! Still harder! Harder still! You see the enemy’s blood extend like a lake! It rises up to your chests! Courage! Strike still harder, Gauls! Strike the Romans! Strike harder still! You will rest to-morrow.... To-morrow Gaul will be free! Let, to-day, from the Loire to the ocean, but one cry resound— ‘To arms!’”
As if carried away by the breath of war, all the tribes dispersed, running to their arms. The moon had gone down; dark night set in. But from all parts of the woods, from the bottoms of the valleys, from the tops of the hills where the signal fires were burning, a thousand voices echoed and re-echoed the chant of the bards:
“To arms! Strike, Gauls! Strike hard at the Romans! To arms!”
* * *
The above truthful account of all that happened at our poor home on the birthday of my glorious Hena, a day that also saw her heroic sacrifice — that account has been written by me, Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, at the last moon of October of the first year that Julius Cæsar came to invade Gaul. I wrote it upon the rolls of white skin that my glorious daughter Hena gave me as a keepsake, and my e
ldest son, Guilhern has attached to them the keepsake he received from her — the mystic gold sickle of the virgin druid priestess. Let the two ever remain together.
After me, my eldest son Guilhern shall carefully preserve both the writing and the emblem, and after Guilhern, the sons of his sons are charged to transmit them from generation to generation, to the end that our family may for all time preserve green the memory of Hena, the virgin of the Isle of Sen.
THE END
The Brass Bell
OR, THE CHARIOT OF DEATH
Translated by Daniel de Leon
The translator of the 1907 edition of this story describes it rather ambitiously as a ‘thrilling introduction to the class struggle’. In the second story of The Mysteries of the People, we return to the same region not far from the forest of Karnak, where the Gallic tribes are gathering by the town of Vannes, to talk about a collective attack on their oppressors, the Romans. The tribes, on the orders of their Commander in Chief, have adopted a scorched earth policy, leaving behind only the smouldering ruins of their settlements in order to deny the Romans provisions and equipment.
The mariner son of Joel, Albinik and his wife, Meroe, are travelling on foot when they are taken prisoner by Caesar’s soldiers and transported to the Roman leader’s camp. Brought before the great man himself and questioned, we learn that Albinik has had his hand amputated as a punishment, according to the Gallic law, for a failure in duty that was not his fault. On learning that Albinik is a gifted mariner, Caesar offers him an opportunity to avenge the wrong done to him and Albinik seemingly accepts with enthusiasm. Can the son of Joel, leader of men, really be about to betray his family and his people and if so, can he succeed? Meanwhile, the Gallic forces gather at Vannes and the narrative is taken over by Guilhern, Albinik’s brother, who offers his account of events from the eve of the battle of Vannes onwards…
CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION
THE BRASS BELL; or, The Chariot of Death is the second of Eugène Sue’s monumental serial known under the collective title of The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family across the Ages.
The first story — The Gold Sickle; or, Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen — fittingly preludes the grand drama conceived by the author. There the Gallic people are introduced upon the stage of history in the simplicity of their customs, their industrious habits, their bravery, lofty yet childlike — such as they were at the time of the Roman invasion by Caesar, 58 B. C. The present story is the thrilling introduction to the class struggle, that starts with the conquest of Gaul, and, in the subsequent seventeen stories, is pathetically and instructively carried across the ages, down to the French Revolution of 1848.
D. D. L.
CHAPTER I.
THE CONFLAGRATION.
THE CALL TO arms, sounded by the druids of the forest of Karnak and by the Chief of the Hundred Valleys against the invading forces of the first Caesar, had well been hearkened to.
The sacrifice of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, seemed pleasing to Hesus. All the peoples of Brittany, from North to South, from East to West, rose to combat the Romans. The tribes of the territory of Vannes and Auray, those of the Mountains of Ares, and many others, assembled before the town of Vannes, on the left bank, close to the mouth of the river which empties into the great bay of Morbihan. This redoubtable position where all the Gallic forces were to meet, was situated ten leagues from Karnak, and had been chosen by the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, who had been elected Commander-in-Chief of the army.
Leaving behind them their fields, their herds, and their dwellings, the tribes were here assembled, men and women, young and old, and were encamped round about the town of Vannes. Here also were Joel, his family, and his tribe.
Albinik the mariner, together with his wife Meroë left the camp towards sunset, bent on an errand of many days’ march. Since her marriage with Albinik, Meroë; was the constant, companion of his voyages and dangers at sea, and like him, she wore the seaman’s costume. Like him she knew at a pinch how to put her hand to the rudder, to ply the oar or the axe, for stout was her heart, and strong her arm.
In the evening, before leaving the Gallic army, Meroë dressed herself in her sailor’s garments — a short blouse of brown wool, drawn tight with a leather belt, large broad breeches of white cloth, which fell below her knees, and shoes of sealskin. She carried on her left shoulder her short, hooded cloak, and on her flowing hair was a leathern bonnet. By her resolute air, the agility of her step, the perfection of her sweet and virile countenance, one might have taken Meroë for one of those young men whose good looks make maidens dream of marriage. Albinik also was dressed as a mariner. He had flung over his back a sack with provisions for the way. The large sleeves of his blouse revealed his left arm, wrapped to the elbow in a bloody bandage.
Husband and wife had left Vannes for some minutes, when Albinik, stopping, sad and deeply moved, said to Meroë:
“There is still time — consider. We are going to beard the lion in his den. He is tricky, distrustful and savage. It may mean for us slavery, torture, or death. Meroë, let me finish alone this trip and this enterprise, beside which a desperate fight would be but a trifle. Return to my father and mother, whose daughter you are also!”
“Albinik, you had to wait for the darkness of night to say that to me. You would not see me blush with shame at the thought of your thinking me a coward;” and the young woman, while making this answer, instead of turning back, only hastened her step.
“Let it be as your courage and your love for me bid,” replied her husband. “May Hena, my holy sister, who is gone, protect us at the side of Hesus.”
The two continued their way along the crests of a chain of lofty hills. They had thus at their feet and before their eyes a succession of deep and fertile valleys. As far as eye could reach, they saw here villages, yonder small hamlets, elsewhere isolated farms; further off rose a flourishing town crossed by an arm of the river, in which were moored, from distance to distance, large boats loaded with sheaves of wheat, casks of wine, and fodder.
But, strange to say, although the evening was clear, not a single one of those large herds of cattle and of sheep was to be seen, which ordinarily grazed there till nightfall. No more was there a single laborer in sight on the fields, although it was the hour when, by every road, the country-folk ordinarily began to return to their homes; for the sun was fast sinking. This country, so populous the preceding evening, now seemed deserted.
The couple halted, pensive, contemplating the fertile lands, the bountifulness of nature, the opulent city, the hamlets, and the houses. Then, recollecting what they knew was to happen in a few moments, soon as the sun was set and the moon risen, Albinik and Meroë; shivered with grief and fear. Tears fell from their eyes, they sank to their knees, their eyes fixed with anguish on the depths of the valleys, which the thickening evening shade was gradually invading. The sun had disappeared, but the moon, then in her decline, was not yet up. There was thus, between sunset and the rising of the moon, a rather long interval. It was a bitter one for husband and wife; bitter, like the certain expectation of some great woe.
“Look, Albinik,” murmured the young woman to her spouse, although they were alone — for it was one of those awful moments when one speaks low in the middle of a desert— “just look, not a light: not one in these houses, hamlets, or the town. Night is come, and all within these dwellings is gloomy as the night without.”
“The inhabitants of this valley are going to show themselves worthy of their brothers,” answered Albinik reve
rently. “They also wish to respond to the voice of our venerable druids, and to that of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys.”
“Yes; by the terror which is now come upon me, I feel we are about to see a thing no one has seen before, and perhaps none will see again.”
“Meroë, do you catch down there, away down there, behind the crest of the forest, a faint white glimmer!”
“I do. It is the moon, which will soon be up. The moment approaches. I feel terror-stricken. Poor women! Poor children!”
“Poor laborers; they lived so long, happy on this land of their fathers: on this land made fertile by the labor of so many generations! Poor workmen; they found plenty in their rude trades! Oh, the unfortunates! the unfortunates! But one thing equals their great misfortune, and that is their great heroism. Meroë! Meroë!” exclaimed Albinik, “the moon is rising. That sacred orb of Gaul is about to give the signal for the sacrifice.”
“Hesus! Hesus!” cried the young woman, her cheeks bathed in tears, “your wrath will never be appeased if this last sacrifice does not calm you.”
The moon had risen radiant among the stars. She flooded space with so brilliant a light that Albinik and his wife could see as in full day, and as far as the most distant horizon, the country that stretched at their feet.
Suddenly, a light cloud of smoke, at first whitish, then black, presently colored with the red tints of a kindling fire, rose above one of the hamlets scattered in the plain.