by Eugène Sue
Morise— “What! So soon! Did you hear the wicked boy, Florette? He thinks of leaving us!”
Florette (smiling)— “Either Mylio will take me along with him, or he will leave me here with you; whichever way, I shall be satisfied.”
Karvel— “What is your plan, brother?”
Mylio— “My sincere love for Florette has put an end to the pranks of my youth. Your own indulgence and Morise’s will draw a veil over the past. Nevertheless I have put to bad use the faculty for poetry that nature endowed me with. I now desire to turn it to a useful purpose. Brother, you and I have read in the legends of our family how, at the time of the invasion of Gaul by the Romans, the Gallic bards fired the courage of our combatants, and how, still later, after the Roman conquest, the bards continued to arouse with their patriotic chants the people of Gaul against the foreign conqueror. The memorable chant of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys:
‘Drop, drop, thou dew of gore!’
armed more than one arm against the Romans.”
Karvel— “I grasp your thought — I approve it, Mylio — Aye, it would be putting the poetic talent that God gifted you with to a noble use, by using it to arouse the enthusiasm of our people.”
Mylio— “The Church orders her monks to preach the extermination of our country. Now, we the trouveres, like the Gallic bards of old, will fire the people with our songs against the fanatics who threaten our freedom and our lives!”
Morise— “The thought is generous and noble. I join my approval to Karvel’s.”
Mylio— “A minute ago the Lady of Lavaur repeated twice a few words that drew tears from me: ‘What wrong have we done to those priests, my poor child?’”
Florette— “Oh! Mylio, those words made me also weep. They still affect me!”
Mylio— “It is because they are true and heart-rending words that escaped from a maternal heart. What wrong was done to those priests!”
At this moment a snore that sounds like a thunder clap breaks upon the silence from the corner where Goose-Skin is soundly sleeping. Mylio turns around, looks at the juggler, and, smiling at the sight, says to Karvel:
“Brother, I have wholly forgotten to mention my traveling companion to you.”
Morise— “Despite his serious mien, your brave companion makes me feel like laughing.”
Karvel— “The poor man perhaps feels sad that a minute ago Mylio stopped him short at the best turn of his paraphrase concerning the profound truth that ‘the gown does not make the monk.’ His discourse was interrupted.”
Mylio— “My companion is a juggler, which is the same as saying that his coarse songs, much as they are liked in the taverns, are hardly calculated for delicate ears. I therefore notified Goose-Skin, that is the name that he goes by, that he must keep a watch over his words when near you. Hence his embarrassment, and his obstinate persistence in assuming a venerable appearance. I must pray your indulgence towards him. Yours also, Morise. He is entitled to it by reason of his attachment to me, of which he has given me more than one proof.”
Karvel— “All good hearts deserve indulgence and friendship, brother. (Smiling) But I am inclined to reproach you for having made of us scare-crows of virtue and frightening the poor fellow. That is why he is so embarrassed in his conversation and demeanor.”
A second snore so prodigious and so much louder than the first escapes from Goose-Skin that he is himself awakened with a start. He rubs his eyes and rolls them around with a scared look; rises abruptly and re-assuming his air of gravity addresses Morise with great affectation of politeness:
“May our compassionate hostess bestow upon me the alms of her mercy for the enormous incongruity of my sleep. But we have been traveling day and night since we left Blois; hence great is my fatigue. Besides, and moreover, in that it causes the vile low appetites to slumber, sleep is of itself a sort of virtue—”
Mylio (interrupting him)— “Why, sister, this fat man who is here boasting to you of the virtuous innocence of his sleep, in that it causes his earthly appetites to slumber — this identical man, who speaks to you in that guise, came near throttling me one day, simply because I woke him up in the middle of a savory dream in which, after seeing Shrove-Tide do battle with Shrove-Tuesday, the one armed with fishes the other with sausages, he was just about to devour both the vanquished and the vanquisher, together with their full accoutrements.”
Goose-Skin (in a tone of pitiful reproach to his friend, seeing that Karvel and his wife laugh at Mylio’s story)— “Oh, Mylio!”
Mylio— “Accordingly, you are informed that my friend Goose-Skin, whom I hereby introduce to you, is a gourmand, likes his cups a little — or, rather, a good deal—”
Goose-Skin— “I! Just heavens!”
Mylio— “He is also somewhat of a fibber, a roysterer, not over bold, considerable of a libertine and a braggart — that is his portrait from the side of his morals!”
Goose-Skin (with a contrite air)— “Oh! Respectable host and hostess! Do not believe that wicked jester! All that he has just told you is false!”
Mylio— “After this confession that modesty alone kept back from my friend’s lips, I shall add: But he has a good heart, he shares his crust of bread with whomsoever is hungry, and his pot of wine with whomsoever is thirsty. Finally, he has given me proofs of affection that I shall not forget in all my life. (Addressing Goose-Skin more particularly) This being said, my good Goose-Skin, my friends and myself must now request you not to have the word ‘virtue’ constantly on your lips, and, instead of lowering your eyes, of keeping yourself under constraint, of puckering your lips with an air of piety, allow your broad smile to spread freely over your wide countenance, and, should it please you, even to sing, full throated, whatever is your favorite song. Nobody will be angry about it.”
Karvel (to Goose-Skin, who heaves a sigh of relief, and whose face seems slowly to dilate)— “My brother has interpreted our thoughts. So, then, dear guest, no more constraint. Return to your natural good spirits. We heartily love a hearty laugh. Do you know why? Because a false or wicked heart never is frankly joyous. Moreover, we believe that much should be pardoned to those who have remained good; they will become better. You are of the former, dear guest. We welcome you. We shall love you as you are, and, jolly friend, love us as we are.”
Goose-Skin (wholly himself again)— “Oh! Dame Virtue, I bow to you—”
Mylio (interrupting him)— “How is that? Still affecting sanctity?”
Goose-Skin— “Oh! Dame Virtue! You muffle yourself up in an unseemly cloak. With a suspicious eye, foaming mouth and twisted neck you harass people in the voice of an owl in love, saying: ‘This way! Come immediately this way, you lumbering scamp! You sack of wine! You pig of gluttony! You brick of lasciviousness! You hare of cowardice! This way! Be quick about it and adore me, serve me! Woo me! And if you do not, I shall strangle you, vagabond! Green dog! Red donkey! Triple mule!’ And do you wonder, sweet lady, that people take their paunches between their hands in order that they may be able to run all the faster, and escape from your gracious invitation?”
Morise (to Karvel, smiling)— “He is right!”
Goose-Skin— “Oh sharp-tongued dame! Old scold of a dame! Claw-fingered dame! Just assume for a moment the mild look, the sweet voice, the good heart, the gentle language of my amiable hostess, Dame Morise, who stands here, or of our worthy host Karvel, who stands there, and you will see, Dame Virtue, whether you will still cause people to run away from you, and whether people will not, on the contrary, say to you (addressing Morise:) ‘Dame Virtue, poor old Goose-Skin has been pursued until now by a horrible witch, who, usurping your name, strove by dint of insult and scratches to force him to court her. Alas! Old Goose-Skin now finds out too late the trickery of the witch; he is no longer of the age to court anybody. Therefore, gracious Dame Virtue, pity Goose-Skin. He only now sees you for the first time in your pure and charming reality.’ But, alas! I am now too old to dare raise my eyes to you!”
Morise (smiling)— “Let it be so! I shall be Dame Virtue; and in accepting the name I certainly am not Dame Modesty. But, never mind! I am Dame Virtue. Now, then, as such, I call upon you earnestly to raise your eyes up to me. I am neither proud, exacting, jealous nor difficult to please. Young folks or old, good looking or homely, provided their actions prove to me that they occasionally remember me, ever find me in a happy frame of mind and loving. So you see, dear guest, that despite your age, you still may love Dame Virtue!”
Goose-Skin (scratching his ear)— “Oh, certainly! If all that shall be required of me will be some slight service, now and then, I certainly shall enlist myself as your servant, Dame Virtue. But, in all humility, I know myself.”
Mylio— “Come, now, my good friend! No exaggerated modesty. I shall on the spot give you an opportunity to prove to my brother and sister that you are capable of a brave and generous act.”
Goose-Skin— “Do not undertake too much — take care! I am not yet very firmly nailed to virtue.”
Mylio— “A minute ago, while you slept, I informed Karvel, and he approved it, of a good and useful project that I have in mind. You heard at Blois the words of Abbot Reynier as clearly as I did. The Church is about to let loose the dogs of war upon Languedoc. We must now, with our songs, raise the popular resistance to the pitch of heroism against the merciless Crusade. Second me in the undertaking. I rely upon you.”
Goose-Skin— “Ho! Mylio, my poor hurdy-gurdy will not wait to accompany my songs. It will break loose all of itself — with laughter if it hears me strike a heroic note. No, no! For your harp be the laurel of battle, for my humble hurdy-gurdy a branch of the grape vine or a bouquet of marjoram.”
Karvel (to Goose-Skin)— “Noble guest, take my brother’s word. If he has charmed with his chants the ears of the rich, you have charmed those of the poor. You will certainly move their hearts as well if you sing to them of the frightful ills that our country is threatened with by the Crusade that is being preached against us.”
Goose-Skin— “Worthy host, may I never in my life again touch a tankard of wine, if I know what to sing upon such a theme.”
Florette (timidly)— “Mylio — if I dared—”
Mylio— “Speak, dear child!”
Florette— “I heard you on the road say that that wicked monk of Citeaux, Abbot Reynier, from whose clutches I escaped, thanks to you, Mylio, is one of the chiefs of the Crusade. It seems to me that if Master Goose-Skin would narrate in a song the story of how that wicked monk, who is one of the chief agents of this war which they have started in the name of God, meant to ruin a poor serf girl—”
Goose-Skin (clapping his hands gleefully)— “Florette is right! ‘The Fritter of the Abbot of Citeaux!’ That shall be the title of the song. You remember, Mylio, the words of Sir Ribald when he told you he meant to make a speedy call at the mill of Chaillotte? Ha! By my hurdy-gurdy! I shall salt the song. I shall pepper it so generously that even people with palates no better than a whale’s, once they shall have tasted my song will be seized with a furious appetite to despatch the sycophants! The hypocrites! Devoured with concupiscence, they now propose to massacre people in the name of the Savior of the world!”
Mylio— “Excellent! Excellent, my old Goose-Skin! Instil in your verses the indignation of your soul, and your song will be good for ten thousand soldiers in the defense of Languedoc. (To Florette) Your excellent judgment has served you well, dear girl. Your straightforward and childlike heart is justly in revolt at the horrible spectacle of the hypocrisy of these proud, greedy and debauched priests, who now threaten to exterminate the people of this country while they invoke the name of Jesus, the God of love and forgiveness. (To Morise and Karvel) I shall be back on the day of danger. If my love for Florette has inspired me with disgust for my barren and dissolute life, the remembrance of both you, Morise, and you Karvel, has brought me back here. I wish that my marriage with her who is to be the companion of my life be consecrated by your and your wife’s presence. To marry under your auspices, is not that to pledge myself to take you for my model?”
Karvel (profoundly moved, takes the hands of Florette and Mylio, joins them in his own, and says in a tremulous voice)— “Your marriage will be inscribed to-morrow in the register of our city magistrates. Mylio, my brother, Florette, my sister, you whom the mysterious bonds of the heart already unite, I take to witness the thoughts of your souls and the words of your lips, be ye forevermore one! Henceforth rejoice at the same joys, suffer the same pains, console each other in the same hopes, share with each other the daily toils that will worthily provide you with your daily bread. If, happier than Morise and myself, you should live again in your children, strive by precept and by example to develop in them their original goodness. Bring them up in the love of work, of justice and of right, to the end that, faithful to the morals of Christ, one of the wisest men that humanity has produced, they be indulgent towards those whom ignorance, neglect or misery have led astray. For all such let them have a ready pardon, instruction, love and charity.
“But also habituate their young souls to be awake to and to entertain a horror for oppression and iniquity. Habituate your children to the thought that some day they may have to suffer, to struggle and perhaps to die in the defense of their rights. Teach them that, if clemency towards the weak and the suffering is a virtue, resignation to the violent acts of an oppressor is an act of cowardice, is a crime! Saturate their souls in the hatred for injustice; then, on the day of trial, your children will be found ready and resolute. Let them repose unshakable faith in the future, in the enfranchisement of Gaul, our motherland.
“Finally, impart to your children this virile druid conviction— ‘Man, immortal and infinite like God, proceeds from one world to another, eternally reviving body and soul in those innumerable stars that shine in the firmament.’ Impart to them this sturdy belief, and they will be, as our fathers were during the heroic epoch of our history, healed of the disease of death.
“And now, Mylio, my brother, and Florette, my sister, may your union be what the ardent wishes of my heart desire for it! May the ills that threaten this country leave you unscathed! Oh, believe us, Florette, you will be doubly cherished by us, because, thanks to you, our brother has come back to us, and my wife and myself have gained a sister in you.”
At the end of these words, Karvel the Perfect presses Florette and Mylio to his heart and holds them long in his embrace. With her forehead leaning on the shoulder of her husband, Morise partakes of the deep emotion that thrills him and the bridal couple. Goose-Skin himself can not hold back a tear which he wipes away with the point of his thumb. But speedily recovering his habitual good spirits, the old juggler cries out:
“Oxhorns! Master Karvel, excuse the sincerity of old Goose-Skin, but he is of the impression that in the south, as well as the north of Gaul, there is no wedding without a repast. I therefore demand for this evening the wedding feast; to-morrow the marriage will be entered in the city’s register; and day after to-morrow Mylio and I will depart to preach the anti-Crusade in our fashion. (Addressing Morise) Oh! Dame Virtue, see how you have mastered me! Ordinarily I am as craven as a hare, and yet, to please you, I shall take the road and preach war with my music-box. But, God wills it. I feel so furiously inclined to sing my war song, that my throat is dry in advance. It will have to be very thoroughly moistened.”
Karvel (smiling)— “It fortunately happens, merry guest, that we have in the house a cask of Montpelier wine. We shall forthwith broach it.”
Morise (to Goose-Skin)— “And I have in yonder cupboard a ham of Aragon that is worthy of serving as a mace to the famous knight Shrove-Tuesday, whose defeat you dreamed!”
Goose-Skin— “Oh! Dear Dame Virtue, you will think you are dreaming, yourself, when you see me play my jaws and swallow your victuals.”
Karvel— “You may exercise your jaws also upon a brace of superb capons that our farmer brought us yesterday. And we also have a trout, quite worthy of s
erving knight Shrove-Tide for mount.”
Goose-Skin— “That is a feast worthy of a chapter of canonesses!”
Karvel (to Goose-Skin, and pointing to Mylio, who is speaking to Florette in a low voice)— “The prodigal son has returned, must we not kill the fatted calf?”
Mylio (to Florette in a low and fervid tone)— “And now, at last, my sweet friend, my charming Florette, you are really my wife!”
Florette (contemplating her husband with tender love and tears in her eyes)— “Mylio, all I have in my heart, my love, my life I give you. It is little — in exchange for the happiness that I owe you!”
Goose-Skin (interrupting the lovers)— “What is that you are prattling about in that languorous voice? Rather sing my song, little Florette, sing it in a joyous voice:
“Robin loves me, Robin has me!
Robin wished me — he shall have me!”
CHAPTER V.
SONG ON THE CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSIANS.
Behold them, the priests at their head,
Behold them, the Cath’lic Crusaders!
The red cross on their breasts,
And the Christ on their lips,
The fagot in one hand,
The sword in the other!
Behold them in our dear land of Languedoc!
Behold them, the Cath’lic Crusaders,
Behold them, the priests at their head!
What wrong have we done to these priests?
Oh, what wrong have we done unto them!
From all the quarters of old Gaul,
They rush into Albigeois, the Cath’lic Crusaders.
At their head march the legate of the Pope, and Reynier, the Abbot of Citeaux,
And with them many a bishop and many an archbishop: