Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “And of unbridled lechery!” cries a little flute-like voice, interrupting Marphise. The words proceed from Goose-Skin, who, in order to interject the incongruous words disguised his voice and traitorously hid himself behind a cluster of foliage against which a young page, who was placed near the entrance of the Court, leaned with his back not far from the Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram. Stung to the quick, the dignitary turns around and seizes the lad by the collar while Goose-Skin, emerging from his hiding place cries in a voice that he purposely renders all the more raucous: “The insolent little joker! From what brothel can he have come that he uses such foul language towards noble dames? He should be driven out on the spot, Seigneur Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram! Oxhorns — Let us throw him out!”

  The poor page looks nonplussed; his face turns red; he is dumbfounded; he seeks in vain to stammer a few words in his own defense; he is beaten by the indignant crowd; and finally, in order to escape worse treatment, flees in the direction of the avenue of trees. After a while the turmoil created by this incident subsides.

  Marphise (with dignity)— “I know not what were the infamous words that the miserable page, who no doubt is intoxicated, hurled at this tribunal. But the vile words have fallen by virtue of the weight of their own grossness back into the mire from which they issued, and have not been able to rise to the pure ether of Love that this Court inhabits! (A murmur of approbation receives the ethereal response of Marphise, who thereupon proceeds, addressing Mylio:) What! A hundred times did you repeat on the harp the decrees of the tribunal of Cytherea; and now you insult it! Do you forget that only your chants succeeded in lowering the otherwise insuperable barrier that rose between yourself and the noble assemblages where you were tolerated among the knights and the abbots, you, the child of villeins, you, a vile serf, no doubt! The baseness of the language you have held to-day reveals but too clearly the ignominy of your origin.”

  Mylio (with bitterness)— “You speak truly. I am of serf stock. For centuries your race has enslaved, degraded and crushed down mine. Yes; while you here brazenly discuss in refined language foolish or obscene subtleties, millions of poor female serfs are not allowed to enter their husbands’ bed until they have been soiled by the seigneurs in the name of an infamous law! Oh! What I accuse myself of is having forgotten that fact even for a moment — aye, I accuse myself triply for having done that!”

  Marphise— “The humble admission is but one more proof of the hugeness of your insolence and of your ingratitude — dozen-fold traitor and felon!”

  Mylio— “You speak truly again! I was cruelly ungrateful towards my family when, several years back, driven by the ardor of youth I left Languedoc, the country of freedom, the country of honorable customs — a happy land that has known how to crop the crests of the seigneurs and to reconquer both its dignity and independence!”

  Master Oenobarbus the Theologian (angrily)— “Dare you glorify Languedoc, that devilish country, that hot-bed of heresy!”

  Foulques (excitedly)— “Languedoc, where the execrable communes of the people still stand unshaken!”

  Mylio (proudly)— “I accuse myself for having left that noble and brave province, and for coming to these debased regions to charm with licentious songs the ears of this nobility that is the foe of my race! That is my real crime.”

  The proud words of Mylio arouse the indignation of the seigneurs. Fearing lest, in his capacity of the trouvere’s companion, he may also become the victim of the seigneurs’ rage, Goose-Skin profits by the tumult to slide unperceived towards the tunnel of verdure that serves as the Prison of Love. The angered voice of the Seigneur of Bercy rises above the din. Threatening Mylio with his fists, he cries:

  “Wretch! To dare insult the knighthood and our holy Church, and that at this place! I shall order my men to seize you, and they will use their straps upon your shins! Miserable slave! Abominable scamp!”

  Mylio (calm and dignified)— “Foulques of Bercy, your men are superfluous. Fetch a sword. Mine lies in the pavilion of verdure. By God! If you are a man this Court of Love will be transformed into an enclosed field and these fair ladies into the judges of the combat!”

  Foulques (furious)— “Vile serf, I shall punish your insolence with my cane! Down on your knees, villain!”

  Mylio (mockingly)— “By heaven! If your charming wife Emmeline heard you make such threats she would say to you: ‘Dear friend, do not insult in that manner Mylio — he is a better man than you; he may hurt you!’”

  At the cutting repartee, Foulques bounds from his seat. One of the noblemen in the audience draws his sword, and passing it over to the Seigneur of Bercy, says: “Avenge the affront, kill the villein as you would a dog!” Mylio, unarmed, crosses his arms over his breast and defies his adversary. But Goose-Skin, who, yielding to a first impulse of poltroonery had fled to the Prison of Love where Mylio’s sword lay, hears the threats of Foulques, and realizing the danger the trouvere runs, takes the sword, returns in haste, and the very moment when the Seigneur of Bercy rushes sword in hand upon Mylio, the latter hears behind him the panting voice of the juggler, saying: “Here is your sword; defend yourself; defend both of us; if you do not I shall be cut into shreds by virtue of our friendship. Oxhorns! Why did we run into this hornets’ nest!”

  Mylio (takes his sword and puts himself in a position of defence)— “Thanks, my old Goose-Skin! I shall work for us both! Just watch!”

  All in a tremble the juggler shelters himself behind Mylio. Foulques of Bercy, on his part, surprised at seeing the trouvere suddenly armed, remains for a moment in perplexity. A knight is free to kill a defenceless villein, but to cross steel with one is to disgrace himself.

  Mylio— “What, Foulques! You are afraid! Your wife’s warning has convinced you! You fear I may hurt you!”

  Foulques of Bercy (emitting a cry of rage and furiously attacking the trouvere)— “You lie in your throat! Dog!”

  Mylio (defending himself and goading Foulques of Bercy with biting mockery)— “I know Emmeline and I know she knows you. Did she not tell you more than once not to get heated lest your adversary whip you?”

  Foulques of Bercy (fighting with redoubled impetuosity)— “Death and fury! I must have his life!”

  Mylio (defending himself and still goading the Seigneur of Bercy with his irritating jests)— “She knows you so well for a coward that she made me promise her I would not tell on you when you ran away from a fight, or nicely swallowed an affront.”

  Goose-Skin (keeping safely entrenched behind the trouvere)— “Oxhorns! Control your tongue! He will have neither pity nor mercy for us! You are driving him so mad that he will have us broiled alive.”

  Foulques of Bercy (fighting with unabated fury and increased rage at being unable to wound Mylio)— “Blood of Christ! The vile vagabond manages his sword like a knight!”

  The combat continues a while longer, with ferocity on the knight’s part and imperturbable deliberation on the part of the trouvere, in the center of a circle that consists of the audience and the members of the Court, without either the trouvere or the knight being wounded. Both are strong men and dexterous in the use of weapons. The huge body of Goose-Skin, behind the trouvere, according as the latter’s evolutions compel him to move over the ground, jumps hither and thither, backward and forward. His enormous paunch wobbles, he puffs for breath; he seems to be suffocating. Finally, the trouvere ably parries a terrible blow aimed at him by the seigneur and immediately plunges his sword into the knight’s thigh. The knight roars with rage, staggers and drops backward upon the blood-stained sward. The witnesses to the combat hurry to bring aid to the vanquished, and for an instant forget the trouvere.

  Goose-Skin (out of breath and still holding himself behind Mylio)— “Ouf! The big scamp gave us a deal of trouble before we could bring him down. But now, Mylio, take my advice. Let us profit by the tumult and pull our legs out of the trap.”

  Suddenly the loud sound of trumpets is heard at the further end of the avenue of tr
ees, and almost immediately a large body of knights, armed cap-a-pie, wearing on their shoulders the cross of the Crusaders and covered with dust, are seen entering the avenue at a gallop. Among them, and also on horseback, is Abbot Reynier, the superior of the monks of Citeaux, clad in his white robe. Equerries follow the train bearing the banners of their respective seigneurs. Arrived at the bridge that intersects the broad avenue of trees, the seigneurs alight.

  “The Crusaders! They are back from the Holy Land!” is the affrighted cry that goes up from the gathering of noble ladies and knights congregated at the Court of Love, and taken by surprise by their homing husbands.

  The latter mistake the cry for a welcome, and run across the bridge shouting joyfully: “Yes, dear wives! We are back from the Holy Land! Eleven we departed, and eleven we return, thanks to the miraculous protection of the Lord!”

  “And of the good St. Arnold, the patron of deceived husbands!” added Goose-Skin aside, as he profited by the tumult created by the new arrivals to slip into the avenue with the trouvere. “What a droll and lucky accident! It is the return of the eleven husbands of your eleven sweethearts that saves you from the ire of that crowd! I shall split my sides with laughter!”

  Thanks to the general commotion, the trouvere and the juggler make good their escape, while the eleven doughty crusading knights gladfully call their noble wives to them. The Canoness Deliane, being the only unmarried one of the twelve who met in the orchard of the Lady of Ariol, remains behind. The eleven wives rush into the arms of the valiant crusaders, who, blackened as moles and dusty as tramps, rejoice in the embrace of their faithful spouses.

  The first ebullitions of joy having somewhat subsided, Abbot Reynier, clad in the long white robe of the monks of Citeaux, ascends the throne that was until recently occupied by Marphise, the Queen of the Court of Love; commands silence, and, like a new Cuckoo Peter, as Peter the Hermit was popularly called, prepares to spread a new Crusade — this time at home. The Crusade that he has in contemplation is not to the Holy Land. The faith now calls for a raid upon the heretics of the south of Gaul. Silence reigns, and Abbot Reynier, the sycophantic debauchee, who, driven by his concupiscence, only the evening before clandestinely crept into the close of the mill of Chaillotte, addresses the assembly, not in the savage and fiery language of Peter the Hermit, but in measured words, cold and trenchant as the iron of an axe:

  “I have accompanied hither the seigneurs Crusaders, who, anxious to meet their chaste wives, hasten to this place where we find the most illustrious seigneurs of Touraine assembled. Ye noble seigneurs, learned trouveres and noble ladies who hear me, the time is past for frivolous games. The enemy is at our gates. The province of Languedoc has become the hot-bed of an execrable heresy, that is slowly invading the rest of Gaul, and menaces the three sanctuaries, arch-sanctuaries of the land — the Church, the Royalty and the Nobility. The wildest of these heretical miscreants, worse by far than the Saracens themselves, take their arguments from the primitive Evangelium and deny both the authority of the Church and the privileges of the seigneurs; they declare the equality of men; they brand as a theft all wealth in the hands of those who did not produce it; worst of all they hold that ‘the serf is the equal of the seigneur, and that he who does not work neither shall he eat’!”

  Several Nobles’ Voices— “This is infamous! This is insanity! To death with the miscreants!”

  Abbot Reynier— “It is insanity, it is infamous; furthermore, it is dangerous. The sectaries of this heresy gain daily new proselytes. Their leaders, who are all the more vicious and pernicious seeing they affect to practice the reforms that they preach, acquire in that way a detestable influence over the populace. Their pastors, who replace our own holy Catholic priests, have themselves called ‘Perfects.’ Finally, in their infernal criminality, they seek to render their own lives exemplary! It is high time that they be exterminated!”

  Several Nobles’ Voices— “The wretches! The hypocrites! To death with the felons!”

  Abbot Reynier— “Languedoc, that fertile region that abounds in wealth, is in a frightful condition. The Catholic clergy are despised; the royal authority is hardly recognized; the nobility is no less humbled than the Church herself, and, shocking to say! unheard-of outrage! the nobility of the region is almost wholly infected by the damnable heresy. Everywhere replaced by popular magistrates, and stripped of all special privileges, the seigneurs are confounded among the common people. Serfdom no longer exists in that country; the nobility works its fields in common with their tenants. Counts and viscounts are seen there engaged in commerce like bourgeois, and growing rich by traffic! Finally, and as if to cap the climax of abomination, the nobility frequently marries Jewish wives, the daughters of opulent merchants!”

  Several Nobles’ Voices— “Shame! Abomination of desolation! It will be the ruin of Christendom! That calls for vengeance! To the sack with Languedoc! Death to the heretics!”

  Abbot Reynier— “It is both a shame and a terrible danger, my brothers and sisters. The heresy is spreading amain. If it triumphs, the Church is done for, and so are royalty and nobility. The masses lose the sense of terror for hell that we inculcate. We would then be compelled to renounce our rights, our land, our property. We would be forced to bid adieu to the happy and comfortable life that we lead. We would have to resign ourselves to live by work like the serfs, the rustics and the bourgeois. We would be condemned to help ourselves with our hands! What a distressing perspective!”

  Several Nobles’ Voices— “It is the end of the world! It is chaos! An end must be put to these heretics! They must be exterminated!”

  Abbot Reynier— “In order to stamp out this heresy we must make a Crusade against Languedoc! Such a war would be but play for so many valiant men who have traveled as far as the Holy Land to fight the Saracens, and it would be even more meritorious in the eyes of God.”

  The Eleven Crusaders (in chorus)— “Blood of Christ! We have just arrived from Palestine; if God wills it, we are ready to start to-morrow for Languedoc!”

  The Eleven Wives (heroically)— “Go, Oh, valiant husbands! We are resigned to everything that the service of God commands! We are resigned even to the sacrifice of having you absent! Depart immediately, ye champions of the Church! May St. Joseph protect us.”

  Abbot Reynier— “I expected no less from the faith of these valorous knights and from the courage and devotion of their worthy spouses! Oh, dear brothers! If the Crusade to the Holy Land Paradise wins to us, know that the Crusade against Languedoc, a deed that is pious and terrestrial in one, will win for you a double Paradise from God. You will enjoy the heavenly Paradise after death, and before death you will enjoy the terrestrial Paradise of the fertile lands that you will conquer and divide among yourselves! Such is the will of our Holy Father Innocent III. The holy pontiff has issued to us, his servitor, the order to preach this holy war of extermination. I shall read to you, my beloved brothers and sisters, the letter that he has addressed to us on this occasion:

  “INNOCENT III TO HIS DEARLY BELOVED SON REYNIER, ABBOT OF CITEAUX:

  “We hereby order you to bring to the knowledge of all princes, counts and seigneurs of your province that we summon them to assist you against the heretics of Languedoc; and that, when they shall have arrived in that country, they banish out of it all those whom you, my son Reynier, shall excommunicate; confiscate their goods, and apply towards them the extreme punishment in case they persist in their heresy. We enjoin all Catholics to arm themselves against the heretics of Languedoc whenever my son Reynier may call upon them so to do, and we grant to those who take part in this expedition for the defence of the faith the property of the heretics and all and the same indulgences that we accord to those who depart on the Crusade to Palestine. Up, then, soldiers of Christ! Up, then militia-men of the holy militia! Exterminate impiety with all the means that God may reveal unto you. Fight the heretics with vigorous and merciless hands by waging against them a harder war than against the Saracens,
because they are worse. And let the orthodox Catholics be established on all the domains that now belong to the heretics. Amen!”

  The last words of the letter of Pope Innocent III add fuel to the religious enthusiasm of the audience. The noble seigneurs have often heard about the industriousness of the inhabitants of the south of Gaul. They have heard how the people of that region have grown wealthy through a commerce that extends over the Orient and Greece, Italy and Spain; they have heard the praises sung of the soil of Languedoc, which, admirably cultivated, overflows with wine, grain and oil, and abounds in cattle. The conquest of the new and veritable “promised land” is easy. The journey is only about a hundred leagues’ distance. What is such a little trip to these doughty fighters, many of whom have traveled as far as Palestine in search of a quarrel? Abbot Reynier’s preaching is, accordingly, crowned with completest success. The wives, delighted at being rid again of their husbands, and counting upon their share of the booty of Languedoc, incite the gallant knights to enter again and as soon as possible upon the road of the Crusader against the heretics. What can there be clearer than the heresy of Languedoc? Have not the bedeviled fellows, by abolishing in their south of Gaul the delightful privileges, thanks to which the noble ladies of the north of Gaul live in luxury, pleasures, idleness and libertinage without other thought than to make love, endangered all the delights in the north of Gaul also? Accordingly, mindful of the possible contagion of such a pestilence, and shuddering at the bare thought of their, noble dames that they are, being reduced to live modestly and industriously by their own labor like the villeins and bourgeois, they cry out louder still than their husbands: “To arms! Death to the heretics!”

  The Chamber of Sweet Vows dissolves amidst wild commotion. The larger number of the knights, from the Bailiff of the Joy of Joys to the Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram, hasten home to prepare for their departure on the Crusade against Languedoc, where they are to exterminate the heretics of the south of France.