by Eugène Sue
Weep! Weep, Brittany! and yet be proud of your glory! Your sons, crushed down by numbers, resisted to their last breath; all have fallen wounded or dead in defence of their freedom!
The river is fordable for infantry at only one place. The monk who accompanies Neroweg points out the passage to the troops of Louis the Pious. They cross it immediately after the annihilation of the cavalry of Morvan. The Armoricans who are drawn up on the opposite bank of the Scoer heroically defend the ground inch by inch, man to man, ever falling back toward the fortified enclosure that is the last refuge of our families. Marching over heaps of corpses, the soldiery of Louis the Pious finally assail the fortified enclosure, all its defenders having been killed or wounded. The enclosure is taken. According to their custom, the Franks slaughter the children, put the women and maids to the torture of infamous treatment, and lead them away captive to the interior of Gaul. Ermond the Black, a monk and familiar of Louis the Pious in this impious war, wrote its account in Latin verse. The death of Morvan is narrated in the poem as follows:
“Then presently the cry runs through the ranks
That Morvan’s head, the Breton chieftain’s head,
Has been brought in unto the Frankish King:
To see it haste the Franks; they shout with joy
At prospect to behold the grisley sight.
From hand to hand the bloody head is passed,
Marred with the sword that hewed it from its trunk.
Witchaire the Abbot next is called upon
T’ identify the member, if it be
The head of Morvan, that redoubted chief.
He pours some water on the matted front,
He laves it, wipes the hair from off its brow,
And cries ‘’Tis Morvan— ’tis his Gallic lour!’”
Thus Brittany, once lost to the Franks, is placed anew under their sway.
EPILOGUE
VORTIGERN, THE GRANDSON of Amael, wrote this account of the war of the Franks against Brittany. Left for dead on the banks of the Scoer, he did not recover his senses until a day and a night had passed after the defeat of the Bretons. Some Christian druids, led to the spot by Caswallan, who had escaped the massacre, came to the field of battle to gather the wounded who might still be alive. Vortigern was of the number. From them he learned that his sister Noblede, the wife of Morvan, together with other women and young girls who took refuge in the fortified enclosure, had stabbed themselves to death in order to escape being outraged by the Franks and led into slavery. After Abbot Witchaire left the house of Morvan on his return trip to announce to Louis the Pious the refusal of the Armorican Gauls to pay the tribute demanded from them, Vortigern returned with his wife and children to Karnak in order to gather in the crops from his fields. The harvest being in, he left his family at the house of his parents, and returned to Morvan in order to join the latter’s forces, and oppose the army of Louis the Pious. Immediately after his wounds were healed, Vortigern returned to Karnak, where he rejoined his wife and children. The Franks had not dared push their invasion beyond the valley of Lokfern. They contented themselves with leaving Armorica devastated and stripped of her bravest defenders. Yet is she not subdued. She but waits the moment to revolt anew.
Vortigern joined this narrative to the other narratives of his family, and he accompanied his own account with the two Carlovingian coins, the gift of Thetralde, one of the daughters of Charles the Great. These relics of the family of Joel now consist of Hena’s little gold sickle, Guilhern’s little brass bell, Sylvest’s iron collar, Genevieve’s silver cross, Shanvoch’s casque’s lark, Ronan the Vagre’s poniard’s hilt and his branding needle, Bonaik’s abbatial crosier and Vortigern’s Carlovingian coins, together with the narratives that accompany them.
Myself, Rosneven, the oldest son of Vortigern, who make this entry at the foot of my father’s narrative, can only record here my father’s death on the fifth day of February of 889. These have been sad years for Brittany, and also for our own family in particular. Our special sorrows proceed from the estrangement of my younger brothers, one of whom left Gaul and sailed to the country of the Northman pirates. I lack both the spirit and the will to recite these lamentable events. Perhaps my youngest brother Gomer, gifted with more energy, ability and perseverance than myself, may some day undertake the task.
THE END
The Iron Arrow-Head
OR, THE BUCKLER MAIDEN. A TALE OF THE NORTHMAN INVASION
Translated by Daniel de Leon
This story centres around the invasion of the Northmen and the opening scene is set in Paris, at the home of Master Eidiol, his wife, Martha and their son, Guyrion and their daughter, Anne. One day, mother and daughter are horrified to witness Guyrion defy a group of ruthless knights, led by Rothbert, Count of Paris, who are tormenting a helpless serf. Eidiol intervenes, which only leads to both men being arrested. Father Fultrade of the abbey at St Denis intervenes, pointing out to the Count that as the prisoners are skilled mariners and boatmen, they will be needed when the Northmen swoop down in another pirate raid, as soon they must; the prisoners are released, thankfully so, as father and son have a sea voyage to make. As they set off on their own travels, two vessels manned by the Northmen have also set sail. Swift, light, easy to manoeuvre, they glide like sea serpents through the water, carrying their warlike human cargo. Each vessel is led by a chief – Gaelo; and Shigne, who is a female warrior of immense courage, but also great beauty. Gaelo makes no secret of his passion for his female comrade and in an effort to prove to her his prowess, he declares that he will take St Denis in Paris, regarded as an impregnable target. With every stroke of the oars, the Northmen and the danger they represent, gets closer to Paris…
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
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.
CHAPTER XIV.
EPILOGUE
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
The invasion of the Normans, or Northmen, or Norsemen — called throughout this brilliant story the Northmans — bears characteristics that distinguish it markedly from all the other European invasions. With all the others the migrations were brought on by home changes of soil and waterways that drove the invaders westward. War was only a means, the goal was bread. With the Northman invasion it was otherwise. The goal was war and adventure. This simple circumstance places a wholly different stamp upon the Northman invaders. It explains the impulse they gave to oratory, poetry, music and the fine arts. Their rush from the frozen north through Europe — conquering and transforming England; carving for themselves large domains out of the French territory, then held in the imbecile hands of the imbecile successors of Charlemagne; startling the populations of southern Italy and Sicily — acted like a leaven through all the territories that they traversed. And they traversed none without raising its tone with their poetic-barbarian spirit.
This story, the tenth of the Eugène Sue series “The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages,” is a matchless sketch of the Northman. It reproduces his uncouthness illumined with his brilliant latent qualities. The characteristics of the Northman invader have for their setting the physical and intellectual dullness of the Frankish conquerors of Gaul. The clash of the two reproduces a historic picture, or a page of history, that is unique.
The fears entertained by Charlemagne and expressed in the preceding story— “The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne” — are verified in this. A race of bold and adventurous invaders steps upon the scene of France, shocking the ruling class, arousing the ruled, and introducing a fresh breath into the land.
The Northman invasion of France reads, even in the
driest work of history, like a rollicking Norse tale. That spirit is preserved in this charming historic novel, which is as instructive as it is entertaining, and in which again a descendant of the conquered race of Joel witnesses the degradation of the second royal house of France preparatorily to the witnessing, a few generations later, by another descendant of Joel, of the downfall of that second dynasty and the rise of the third, narrated in the following story, “The Infant’s Skull; or, The End of the World.”
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, July, 1908.
CHAPTER I.
ROTHBERT, COUNT OF PARIS.
THE HOUSE OF Master Eidiol, the dean of the Skippers’ or Mariners’ Guild of Paris, was situated not far from the port of St. Landry and of the ramparts of that part of the town that is known as the Cité, which is bathed by the two branches of the Seine, and is flanked with towers at the entrance of the large and the small bridge, its only means of access from the suburban portions of the larger Paris. No one could cross the bridge without paying toll to the bishop, the ecclesiastical feudal lord of the Cité. Like all other houses of the common people, Master Eidiol’s was constructed of wooden slats held together by means of cross-beams; it was only two storeys high, and was roofed with thatch. Only the basilicas, the rich abbeys of St. Germain-des-Prés, of St. Germain-d’Auxerre and others, as also the residences of the counts, the viscounts and the bishops of Paris were built of stone and covered with lead, not infrequently with gilded roofings. In the upper storey of Master Eidiol’s house, Martha, his wife, was engaged on some needlework, seated near her daughter Anne the Sweet, who was busy spinning. Agreeable to a new-fangled style of the time which, started by the royal families and their grandees, descended to the common towns-people, Eidiol had given a surname to his children. He called his daughter Anne, “the Sweet,” for there was nothing in the world milder or sweeter than this child, whose nature was as angelic as her face. His son Guyrion, Eidiol surnamed “the Plunger”, because the daring lad, a skipper like his father, was one of the most skilful divers that ever cut across the swift waters of the Seine. Anne the Sweet spun her hemp at the side of her mother, a good old woman of more than sixty years, delicate in appearance, clad in black, and wearing a number of relics around her neck. Pointing to the cheerful rays of the May sun that entered through the little lead-bordered glass squares of the narrow window of her chamber, Martha observed to her daughter:
“What a beautiful spring day. We may perhaps see to-day Father Fultrade, the worthy leader of the choir at St. Denis, out taking a ride on his fine horse.”
“By this beautiful May day, I would prefer to go on foot! Do you remember, mother, how Rustic the Gay wagered with my brother a tame quail that he would walk two leagues in an hour? And how he won the wager, and gave me the quail?”
“How foolish you are! Do you imagine that so distinguished a personage as the leader of the choir at St. Denis could afford to walk two leagues and more, like other common people?”
“But Father Fultrade is still young enough, big enough, and robust enough to walk any such distance. Rustic the Gay would do it in a little more than half an hour.”
“Rustic is not Father Fultrade! What a holy man! It is from him I have all these sacred relics that I wear. He gave them to me when he lived in this town as the priest of the Church of Notre Dame, and great favorite with Seigneur Rothbert, the Count of the City of Paris. Alas! Without these sacred relics I would certainly have died of that violent cough, which has not yet quite left me.”
“Poor mother, that cough does not cease to cause uneasiness to my father, my brother and myself. And yet you might now be wholly healed of it if you would only consent to try the remedy that has been so highly recommended to us.”
“What remedy?”
“The one that the skippers of the port use. They put some tar in a bowl of water, boil it, and drink it down warm. Rustic the Gay has told us of the wonderful cures that he knows the potions to have effected.”
“You are always talking about Rustic the Gay.”
“I?” ingenuously answered the young girl, turning her candid face toward her mother and without betraying the slightest embarrassment. “If I frequently talk to you about him it is unintentional.”
“I believe you, my child. But how can you expect that any human medicine could cure me completely, when my distemper resists the relics? You might as well try to make me believe that any human power could return to me the dear little girl, who, alas! disappeared from our side ten years before the birth of your brother. Let us bow before the will of God!”
“Poor little sister! I weep over her absence, although I have never known her.”
“My poor little daughter could have taken my place near you. She would now be old enough to be your mother.”
A loud noise, interspersed with cries and proceeding from the street, interrupted at this point the conversation between Martha and her daughter.
“Oh! Mother,” exclaimed Anne with a shudder, “it may be another penitent whom the mob is falling upon with insults and blows! Only yesterday, an unfortunate fellow whom they were pursuing in that way remained bleeding and half dead upon the street. His clothes were in shreds and his flesh not much better.”
“That’s right!” answered Martha with a nod of her head. “It was just! I like to see these penitents thoroughly punished. If they are penitents it is because they have been convicted of impiousness, or of lack of faith. I can not pity impious people.”
“But, mother, is not the penance that the church imposes upon them in expiation of their sins severe enough? They must walk bare-footed, with irons to their limbs, for two or three years, often longer, dressed in sack-cloth, their heads covered with ashes, and they are compelled to beg their bread, seeing that the sentence forbids them to work.”
“My child, these penitents, upon whom the mobs love to shower blows, should bless each wound that they receive. Each wound brings them nearer to salvation. But hark! The noise and the tumult increase. Open the window. Let us see what is going on in the street.”
Anne and her mother rose and hastened to the narrow window, through which Martha quickly put her head, while her daughter, leaning on her shoulder, hesitated to look out. Happily for the tender-hearted child it was not one of those savage hunts in which the good Christians took delight against the penitents whom they regarded as unclean animals. The narrow street, bordered with thatched wooden houses, like the one of Eidiol, offered but a strait passage. A severe rainfall on the previous day had so soaked the earth that a heavy wagon, driven by two teams of oxen and loaded high with lumber, sank into the mud up to the hub of one of the wheels. Too heavy to be pulled out of the deep mud, the outfit completely blocked the passage, and stood in the way of several knights, who were riding from the opposite direction, with Rothbert, the Count of Paris and Duke of France, and brother of Eudes, who had himself proclaimed King, in prejudice of Charles the Simple, the weak descendant of Charles the Great, who now, in the year 912, reigned over France. Escorted by five or six knights Rothbert found his way blocked by the wagon which, despite all that its driver could do, remained motionless where it had stuck fast. The count, a man of haughty and flinty countenance, always armed with casque and cuirass, together with iron leggings, thigh-pieces and gloves, as if marching to war, now rode a black horse. He hurled imprecations upon the wagon, the teams of oxen and the poor serf who drove them, and who, frightened by the threats of the seigneur, hid himself under the wagon. More and more enraged at the obstacle in his path, the Count of Paris called out to one of his men:
“Prick the vile slave with the point of your lance and force him to crawl out from under the wagon. Prick him in the chest; prick him in the head. Prick hard!”
The knight alighted with his lance, and stooping to the ground sought to reach the serf, who, bent down upon his hands and knees, jumped back and to the sides in order to escape the point of the lance. The Frank grew nettled, began to blaspheme and was angrily pr
odding with his lance under the wagon, when unexpectedly he felt a severe blow dealt to his weapon and immediately saw a hook fastened to a long pole swung under the wagon, while a firm and sonorous voice cried to him:
“If the knights of the count have their lances, the skippers of Paris have their iron hooks!”
At the sight of the sharp iron and the sound of the threatening words, the knight leaped back, while Count Rothbert cried out, pale with rage:
“Where is the villain who dares to threaten one of my men?”