by Eugène Sue
“How so?... Nothing!” cried out Simonne, turning with a start to her husband. “Oh! According to you such insolence must pass unperceived!”
The baker again shook his head, and, profiting by the opportunity to be rid of his casque, that pressed him heavily, he placed it under his arm. “Oh! It is nothing!” proceeded Simonne, now addressing Fergan and Joan. “I take you for judges. You are wise and thoughtful people.”
“And what are we two, Martine and I?” queried Colombaik, laughing merrily. “So, then, you discard us?”
“I do not take you for judges, neither you nor Martine, because you would be too much of my opinion,” replied Simonne; “Master Fergan and his wife are not, as far as I know, suspected of being hot-heads! Let them decide whether I am angry at nothing,” she said, shooting a fresh look of indignation at the baker, who, greatly incommoded by his long sword, had sat down, placing it across his knees after laying his casque on the floor. “This is what happened,” Simonne proceeded: “Agreeable to the promise I yesterday made to Martine of coming for her this morning to assist at the inauguration of our belfry, Ancel and I left the house early. Going up Exchange street we passed before the window of the fortified house of Arnulf, a nobleman of Haut-Pourcin, as he styles himself.”
“I know the seigneur of Haut-Pourcin,” observed Colombaik; “he is one of the bitterest episcopals in town.”
“And his wife is one of the most brazen she-devils that ever joined a caterwauling!” cried out Simonne. “Judge for yourselves, neighbors. She and her maid were standing at one of the lower windows when Ancel and I went by. ‘Look at her,’ she said in a loud voice to her maid, laughing obstreperously; ‘look at the baker’s wife, how she struts in new clothes with her petticoat of Lombard silk, silver belt and skirt bordered with marten fur! May God pardon me! To see such creatures daring to put on silk and rich furs like us noble ladies, instead of humbly keeping to a petticoat of linsey-woolsey and a skirt hemmed with cat’s skin, the proper clothing for the base station in life of these villeins! What a pity! Fortunately her yellow dress is of the color of her pastry and her bannocks! It will serve them for ensign!’”
“That’s only in favor of the excellent baking of Simonne’s cakes, no so, neighbors?” put in the baker, “because, when the bannock comes out of the oven, it should be yellow as gold.”
“See what a fool I am! I failed to take the words of the noble woman for a compliment!” Simonne resumed, saying: “But I answered her insolence plump and plain: ‘The word of a Picardian woman, upon it, Dame Haut-Pourcin, if my petticoat is the ensign of my bannocks, your face is the ensign of your fifty years, despite all your cosmetics, and all your affectations of youth, of maidenhood and of freshness!’”
“Oh!” Colombaik broke out laughing. “An excellent answer to the old fairy, who, indeed, is always dressing like a young girl. There you have the nobility! The pretty dresses of our women trouble them as much as the turrets of our houses. Let them split with rage!”
“My answer struck home,” proceeded Simonne. “The dame of Haut-Pourcin shook like a fury at the bars of her window, yelling: ‘You street-walker!... You gallows-bird!... To dare to talk that way to me!... You vile emancipated serf!... But patience!... Patience!... I shall soon have you cow-hided by my servants!’”
“‘Oh, oh! As to that,’ I answered her, ‘do not talk nonsense, Dame Haut-Pourcin,’” put in the baker; “‘the days are gone by when the noble dames had the woman of the bourgeois beaten!’”
“Yes,” added Simonne with indignation, “and do you know what that harpy replied, while shaking her fist at Ancel? ‘Off with you,’ said she, ‘you lumbering churl! The vile bourgeoisie will not much longer talk so big! Soon we will no longer see clowns wearing the casques of knights, and jades like your wife, wearing silk petticoats paid for by their paramours,’” saying which, Simonne, whose anger had until then been shaded with frolicsome animation, became purple with confusion. Two tears rolled down her large black ayes, and she added in a moved voice: “Such an outrage ... to me.... And Ancel says that’s nothing! Such an outrage exasperates me!”
“Come now, be cool. Are you not as honorable a woman as you are an industrious housekeeper?” said the baker affectionately approaching Simonne, who was wiping off her tears with the back of her hand. “That stupid insult cannot touch you, my dear, and does not even deserve to be remembered.”
“Ancel is right,” said Fergan. “That old woman is gone crazy. Crazy people’s words do not count. But, friends, there is this about it. We must recognize that the insolence of the episcopals increases from day to day. Those allusions to former times foreshadow an evil intent on their part. It is well to be forewarned.”
“What, father, will those people be so badly advised as to think of attacking our Commune? Is their insolence to be taken notice of? Will it be necessary for us to place ourselves on our guard against their evil designs?”
“Yeast that ferments is always sour, my child,” replied the baker, reclining his head pensively. “The remark of your father is just. The provocations of the episcopals have a secret cause. I was just saying to Simonne: ‘It is nothing!’ I now say: ‘It is something!’”
“Very well! Let it be so! Let them dare!” cried out Colombaik. “We are ready for those noblemen and clergymen, for all the tonsured fraternity and their bishop to boot!”
“And if the women take a part, as at the insurrection of Beauvais,” exclaimed Simonne, clenching her little fists, “I, who have no children, shall accompany my husband to battle, and the dame of Haut-Pourcin will pay dear for her insults. ‘Pon the word of a Picardian woman, I shall slap her insolent face as dry as an Easter wafer!”
The good baker was smiling at the heroic enthusiasm of his pretty wife when the peal of a large bell was heard from a distance. Fergan, his family and neighbors, listened to the sonorous and prolonged sound with a tremor of joy.
“Oh, my friends!” said Fergan with emotion, “do you hear it sound for the first time from the belfry of our Commune? Do you hear it? To-day it summons us to a feast; to-morrow it will call us to the meeting of the council where we attend to the business of the city; some day it will give us the signal for battle. A belfry of the people! Your voice of bronze, at last awakening ancient Gaul from her slumber, has given the signal for the insurrection of the Communes!”
While the quarryman was speaking, all the bells of the churches of Laon began to chime in with the peals of the belfry. The deafening clangor soon dominated and completely drowned the isolated tinkling of the communal bell. This rivalry of bell-ringing was no accident, nor yet a token of sympathy. It was an affront, premeditated by the bishop and his partisans. They realized the patriotic importance that the communiers of Laon attached to the inauguration of the symbol of their emancipation, and decided to mar the festivity.
“Oh, those friars! Always spiteful and hypocritic until the day when they deem themselves strong enough to be merciless!” exclaimed Colombaik. “Have your way, ye black-gowns! Ring at your loudest! The canting bells of your churches shall not silence our communal belfry! Your bells ring mankind to servitude, to imbecility, to the renunciation of their dignity; the belfry gathers them to fulfil their civic duties and to defend freedom! Come, father, come! The bourgeois militia must by this time be assembled around the pillars of the market-place. You are constable and I a captain-of-ten. Let’s start. Do not let us be waited for. Liberty or death!”
CHAPTER III.
EPISCOPALS AND COMMUNIERS.
FERGAN PUT ON his casque, and presently giving his arm to Joan the Hunchback, as Colombaik gave his to Martine, and Quatre-Mains to his wife Simonne, the three couples sallied forth from Colombaik’s tannery, followed by his apprentices, who, likewise were members of the Commune.
The rivalry of the bells continued undiminished. At intervals the bells of the churches intermitted their clangor, no doubt in the hope of having silenced the belfry. Its sonorous and regular peal proceeded, however, un
checked, and the clerical clangor was renewed with redoubled fury. The incident, puerile in seeming, but serious at bottom, produced a deep resentment towards the party of the nobles. It was a long distance from the tannery of Colombaik to the market-place, the rendezvous of the bourgeois militia. Large crowds blocked the streets, moving towards the communal Town Hall, that had been three years building and was recently finished. Only the casting and hanging of the bell in its campanile had retarded the inauguration of the monument so dear to the townsmen. More than once did Joan turn back to look, not without uneasiness, in the direction where her son followed with Martine, together with Quatre-Mains and Simonne. Joan’s apprehensions were well founded. A large number of the domestics of the noble and clerical households were dispersed among the crowd, and from time to time hurled some vulgar insult at the communiers, upon which they would immediately take to their heels. Knights, clad in full armor, crossed and re-crossed the streets, their fists upon their hips, their visors up, and casting disdainful and defiant looks upon the people. These provocations increased particularly in the vicinity of the rendezvous of the militia, at the head of which, and armed as if for battle, the Mayor of Laon and his twelve Councilmen were to march in procession to the Town Hall in order to inaugurate by a solemn session the meeting of these magistrates, held until then at the house of John Molrain, the Mayor.
The market-place of Laon, like that of all the cities of Gaul, consisted of large stalls, where, on Saturdays, occasionally also on other days of the week, the merchants, leaving their everyday shops, exposed their products for sale. Outsiders and the suburb population, who drew their supplies from Laon, thus found at one place all that they might want. But on that day the market served as the gathering place for a goodly number of bourgeois and artisans, who had armed themselves to join the procession and impart to it an imposing appearance. In case of war, every communier was obliged to furnish himself with a pike and an axe, or club, at the first call from the belfry, and hasten to the rendezvous. As a rule the crowd seemed indifferent to the insolent gibes and provocations of the episcopals. The communiers, at least a majority of them, felt themselves strong enough to despise the challenges to riot. A few, however, yielded to a certain sense of fear for the iron-clad nobles, who were accustomed to the use of weapons, and with whom the Laonese, who owed their enfranchisement to a contract and not to an insurrection, had not yet had occasion to measure themselves. Finally and moreover, hardly freed from their rude and base servitude, many of the townsmen still preserved, involuntarily, a certain habit, if not of respect, yet of dread for people whose cruel oppression they had so long been subject to. Shortly, the captains-of-tens, commanding squads of tens, and the captains-of-hundreds, commanding companies of hundreds, all under the command of Fergan, who had been chosen constable, or chief of the militia, drew up their ranks along the stalls of the market-place. Colombaik was a captain-of-ten, his body was complete except for one lad called Bertrand, the son of Bernard des Bruyeres, a rich bourgeois who, three years previous, was assassinated in the cathedral by Gaudry, bishop of Laon.
“Probably,” said Colombaik, “poor Bertrand will not join us to-day. This is a feast day, and there are no more feast days for the poor fellow since the murder of his father.”
“Yet there comes Bertrand!” cried out one of the militiamen, pointing at a young man, who, pale, frail and sickly-looking, of a timid and kind appearance, wearing a steel casque and armed with a heavy axe that seemed to weigh down his shoulder, was approaching from a distance. “Poor Bertrand!” the militiaman added, “so feeble and wretched! He is excused for not having avenged the death of his father upon our accursed bishop!” Cordially received by his companions, Bertrand answered their solicitous inquiries with some embarrassment, and silently took his place in the ranks. The Mayor arrived soon after, accompanied by his Councilmen, some unarmed, others armed like Ancel Quatre-Mains, who joined them there. John Molrain, the Mayor, a man in the vigor of life and of a countenance at once calm and energetic, marched at the head of the magistrates of the city. One of them carried the banner of the Commune of Laon, — if the steeple of the people’s belfries rose daringly in the teeth of the feudal donjons, the communal banners floated no less high than those of the seigneurs. The banner of Laon represented two embattled towers, between which rose a naked sword. The emblem signified: “Our city, fortified by walls, will know how to defend itself by arms against its enemies.” Another Councilman carried in a vermillion casket, lying upon a silk cushion, the communal charter, signed by the bishop and the nobles, and confirmed by the signature of Louis the Lusty, King of the French. Finally, a third carried, also upon a cushion, the silver seal of the Commune, which served to attest the acts and decrees rendered by the town Council in the name of the Commune. This large medal, cast in bass relief, represented the Mayor, who, clad in his long robe and with his right hand pointing heavenward, seemed to be taking the oath, while his left hand held a sword with the point resting on his breast. “I, Mayor of Laon, have sworn to maintain and defend the franchises of the Commune: sooner die than betray my trust!” — such was the patriotic meaning of the communal seal, in short, “Liberty or death!”
When the city magistrate arrived, Fergan, who was issuing his last orders to the militiamen, saw a priest, the archdeacon of the cathedral, called Anselm, step out of the crowd. Fergan held the tonsured fraternity in singular aversion, yet greatly esteemed Anselm, a true disciple of Christ. “Fergan,” whispered the archdeacon to the quarryman, “press your friends to redouble their calmness and their prudence, I conjure you. Prevent them from replying to any provocation. I can tell you no more. The time is short. I must proceed to the episcopal palace.” Saying this, Anselm disappeared in the crowd. The advice of the archdeacon, a wise man, beloved by all, and, due to his office, in a position to be reliably informed, struck Fergan. He no longer doubted there was a conspiracy, secretly hatched by the episcopals against the Commune. Profoundly preoccupied, he placed himself at the head of his militiamen, in order to escort the Mayor and the Councilmen to the Town Hall. The obscure names of this magistracy, taken from Fergan’s family archives, and over which he inscribed the exhortation: “May they be ever dear to your memory, ye sons of Joel!” were: John Molrain, Mayor. Councilmen: Foulque, the son of Bomar; Raoul Cabricoin; Ancel, son-in-law of Labert; Haymon; Payen-Seille; Robert; Remy-But; Menard-Dray, Raimbaut the sausagemaker; Payen-Oste-Loup; Ancel Quatre-Mains, and Raoul-Gastines.
The procession started amidst the joyful acclamations of the crowd, who enthusiastically shouted their rallying-cry: “Commune! Commune!” swollen by the sonorous peals from the belfry, the clerical clangor having finally ceased, due to the apprehension of the episcopals, lest the prolonged ringing of their bells was taken for their participation in the festivities. Before arriving at the place where the Town Hall stood, the procession defiled before the house of the knight of Haut-Pourcin, a large and fortified dwelling, flanked with two thick towers, that were joined by an embattled terrace, projecting above the door. Upon this species of balcony were gathered a large number of knights, clergymen, nobles and elegantly bedezined ladies, some young and handsome, others old and ugly. Among the least old of the latter and yet ugliest of all, the dame of Haut-Pourcin was conspicuous. A gaunt virago of about fifty, bony, of parchment skin, and of arrogant mien, she wore a violet cloak with gold buttons and a cape of peacock feathers; on her grizzly hair she had coquettishly fastened a chaplet of lillies of the valley in full bloom, like a shepherdess. The whiteness of her floral ornaments heightened the yellowish color of the dame’s bilious complexion, a complexion, however, that was less yellowish than her long teeth. At sight of the procession, headed by the Mayor and his Councilmen, she turned to those near her, crying out in a sour and piercing voice that was distinctly heard by the communiers, the terrace lying only twelve or fifteen feet above the street: “Mesdames and messeigneurs, have you ever seen a pack of asses tramping to their mill with a more triumphant air?”
“Oh!” answered one of the knights aloud, laughing and pointing with his switch at the Mayor, John Molrain: “And look at the master-ass that leads the rest! How he prances under his furred saddle-cloth!”
“Pity his headgear conceals his long ears from us!”
“Blood of Christ! What a shame to see these Gallic clowns, made slaves by our ancestors, now carrying swords like us of the nobility!” put in the seigneur of Haut-Pourcin. “And we, the descendants of the conquerors; we knights tolerate such villainy!”
“Halloa, there, Quatre-Mains the baker!” yelled the dame of Haut-Pourcin in a squeaky voice, leaning over the railing of the terrace, “Seigneur Councilman, trotting cuckolded and content while armed for war! The last bread that my butler fetched from your shop was not baked enough, and I suspect you of having cheated me in the weight!”
“Halloa, there, Remy the currier!” added a bulky canon attached to the cathedral, “Seigneur Councilman, who are there loitering about, administering the affairs of the city, why are you not at work on the mule saddle that I ordered?”
“Oh, messeigneurs, there comes the cavalry!” exclaimed a young woman laughing and smelling at a nosegay of sweet marjorams. “Look at the swagger of the vagabond who commands his braves, would you not think he was about to hew down everything in sight?”
“Oh, messeigneurs, look at that hero yonder! Oppressed by his visor, he is carrying his casque front side back and his sabre on his shoulder!”
“And that one, who holds his sword like a wax-taper! Guess he is a Pope’s soldier!”
“And yonder goes one who came near putting out the eye of his neighbor with his pike! What a ridiculous set! What silly people!”
“For heaven’s sake, messeigneurs, are you not frozen with terror at the thought that, some day, we may find ourselves face to face and lance in hand, with this bourgeoisie, this formidable rabble-rout of shaven fronts, big paunches and flat feet?”