by Eugène Sue
Full twelve thousand heroes, the flow’r of the brave.
Still greater is the loss of the Crusaders.
But still their forces number near two hundred thousand.
A messenger from Montfort arrives in Carcassonne, and he says:
“Sir viscount, Sirs consuls! The Pope’s blessed legate and also
Seigneur Montfort the count offer a truce unto you,
And they swear on their faith of Cath’lic priests and of knights
That if you, viscount and consuls, will come to the camp of the crusaders
You shall all be respected, and allowed to return to your city
Should you decline to accept the terms that the legate and count will propose.”
Reposing their faith in the oaths of the priest and the knight,
“Let’s to the camp!” say the consuls in the hope their city to save.
And they appear in the tent of Montfort.
They appear in the tent of Montfort.
The viscount says to the count: “Spare the unhappy town,
Mention the ransom; it shall be paid unto you.
If you refuse, to Carcassonne we shall ride back
And bury ourselves under its ruins!”
“Brave Sire!” answers Montfort,
“The whole of your domain now belongs unto me:
The Holy Father to the soldiers of Christ has given the goods of the heretics.
Write on the spot to your townsmen to renounce
Their damnable heresy, else we’ll assault them again on the morrow.
By the God who died and again resurrected, I swear,
Unless they renounce, your townsmen will be put to the sword,
As we did with those of Chasseneuil and Beziers.”
The viscount makes answer: “Montfort, adieu!
We’ve a horror for the Church of the Pope; we reject your proposal;
We shall know how to die!”
And Montfort replies: “No ‘adieus’ here will pass, Sir Viscount of Beziers!
Yourself and your councilmen now are my prisoners,
The prisoners of me, Montfort, the chief of this holy Crusade.”
“Your prisoners we? We, whom a truce now protects?
We, who are here relying on the word of a priest, of the papal legate?
We, who are here under your pledge as a knight?
No, not we; we’re no pris’ners of thine.”
Abbot Reynier of Citeaux then replies: “These are the Pope’s own words:
‘None is bound to keep his pledge to him who keeps not his pledge to God.’
“You shall remain our prisoners, Viscount of Beziers!
To-morrow, to the assault!
Fall to, Montfort!
The Holy Father has ordered:
‘Kill, burn, pillage! Let not a heretic of Carcassonne
Escape the sword, the rope, or the flames!’”
“Let not a heretic of Carcassonne
Escape the sword, the rope, or the flames!”
The young viscount and consuls are pinioned —
The viscount soon dies by poison, the consuls on the gibbet.
At dawn th’ assault is sounded;
The Crusaders march against the walls;
The walls, they are unguarded, they are not now defended.
The Crusaders knock down the palisades,
Fill up the ditches, beat in the gates.
None guard the city; none defend it.
Without striking a blow the Crusaders rush into the streets,
They rush into the houses.
Not a soul is seen on the street, not a soul is found in the houses.
The silence of the tomb reigns in Carcassonne,
What has become of its people?
The silence of the tomb reigns in Carcassonne,
What has become of its people?
The Crusaders invade every nook, every corner.
They find, at last, in hidden corners
Some people gravely wounded, some ill and some old,
Or some women lying-in.
The Crusaders thus find some wives, some daughters or mothers
Who refused to abandon some husband, some father, some son,
Too seriously wounded or old to take flight,
To take flight through the woods and the mountains,
And there to keep in concealment
For days, for months, perhaps.
They fled! Did all the inhabitants of Carcassonne flee?
They fled! Did all the inhabitants of Carcassonne flee?
Yes, notified during the night of the fate of their viscount and consuls,
Afraid of the extermination threatened to their town,
All fled, the wounded dragging behind,
The mothers carrying their children on backs and on arms,
The men taking charge of the provisions.
Aye, leaving behind their hearths and their goods,
All have fled by a secret subterranean passage —
They fled, the people of Carcassonne fled.
They fled, the people of Carcassonne fled,
The thickets of the forests,
The caverns of the mountains will be their place of refuge,
For days to come and months.
If ever they see their town again,
How many will return from the woods, the caverns and the rocks?
How many will have survived exhaustion?
They left, twenty thousand and more;
A few thousand, perhaps, may return.
“Oh! the heretics of Carcassonne have slipped through our fingers!”
Thus cries the papal legate:
“Those who were unable to follow them shall bear the punishment for all.
Pillage the town, and after the pillage the pyre, the gibbet
For the miscreants who fell into our hands!”
Carcassonne is ravaged from cellar to garret.
After the pillage the gibbets are raised,
And the wood is piled for the pyres.
Death! Torture! Rape! Slaughter!
Carcassonne is ravaged from cellar to garret.
After the pillage the gibbets are raised,
And the wood is piled for the pyres.
The Crusaders carry the wounded,
Mutilated some of these are, others expiring;
The weak, the old, the lying-in women,
The daughters, the wives and the mothers of those who were unable to flee —
All are hanged, quartered, or burned.
Flare up, ye flames of the pyres!
Ye ropes of the gibbets, straighten yourselves
Under the weight of your loads!
All are hanged, quartered or burned —
All the Carcassonne heretics left in the town;
All are hanged, quartered or burned,
And then the wagons are filled with the booty.
“To Lavaur!” now cries the papal legate.
“Fall to, Montfort! On the march!
Kill, pillage, burn the heretics!
Our Holy Father thus has issued the order!”
“To Lavaur! To Lavaur!” Montfort makes answer.
And behold, the Cath’lic Crusaders now march upon Lavaur.
Priests lead the way,
The red cross on their breasts,
The name of Jesus on their lips,
The sword in one hand,
The torch in the other!
What wrong have we done to these priests?
Oh, what wrong have we done unto them!
CHAPTER IX.
THE HERETICS’ WAR SONG.
Aye, behold them on the march to Lavaur,
The fagot in one hand,
The sword in the other,
The Catholic Crusaders!
Aye, behold what they’ve done until now.
Oh, valiant sons of Languedoc!
Oh, ye sons of ancient Gaul,
Who, like our fathers, have known how
to re-conquer freedom,
Read on the flag of the Catholic Crusaders,
Read — read these lines traced in blood and in fire:
“Chasseneuil,”
“Beziers,”
“Carcassonne.”
Tell me! Will “Lavaur” also soon be read on its folds?
And “Albi”?
“Toulouse”?
“Arles”?
“Narbonne”?
“Avignon”?
“Orange”?
“Beaucaire”?
Tell me, has there been enough rapine and rape,
Carnage and arson?
Tell me, is’t enough?
Are Chasseneuil, Beziers, Carcassonne enough?
Tell me, Chasseneuil, Beziers, Carcassonne —
Is’t enough?
Tell me, are all our cities to be turned into heaps of ashes?
Our fields into deserts, whitened with human bones?
Our woods into forests of gibbets?
Our rivers into torrents of blood?
Our skies into ruddy reflections of conflagrations and pyres?
Tell me, will you submit,
Ye brave men who emancipated yourselves from the yoke of Rome?
Will you relapse, you, your wives, your children,
Under the execrable power of the priests,
Whose soldiers rape, slay and burn women and children?
Are you ready for that?
No! You are not! No!
Your hearts beat high, your blood boils and you declare:
Chasseneuil, Beziers, Carcassonne — that’s enough! Too much!
Aye, aye, Chasseneuil, Beziers, Carcassonne — that’s enough!
Despite their valor, our brothers have perished.
Let us redouble our valor,
Let us crush our enemy.
No truce nor mercy for him.
Over mountains and valleys —
Let’s pursue him! Harrass him! Cut him to pieces!
Let us rise as one man, sons of Languedoc,
All!
Implacable war!
War to the death to the Cath’lic Crusader!
Right is with us;
All is justified against them —
The fork and the scythe,
The club and the stone,
The hands and the teeth!
To arms, ye heretics of Languedoc!
To arms!
Also we cry:
“On to Lavaur!”
And may Lavaur be the grave of the Cath’lic Crusaders!
Vengeance! Death to the invader!
Mylio the Trouvere composed this song, and throughout the country sang it from place to place while the army of the Crusaders marched upon the city and Castle of Lavaur.
CHAPTER X.
BEFORE THE CASTLE OF LAVAUR.
SON OF JOEL, the following scenes take place in a beautiful villa that has been abandoned by its heretic owners, lies at only a short distance from the castle of Giraude, the Lady of Lavaur, and is now besieged by the Crusaders. The retreat is occupied by the general of the Army of the Faith, Simon, Count of Montfort. He is accompanied by his wife Alyx of Montmorency, who only recently joined her husband in Languedoc. The tents of the seigneurs lie scattered around the house occupied by their chief. The camp itself, formed of huts of earth or of tree branches in which the soldiers are bivouacked, lies at a distance. The mass of serfs, who availed themselves of the opportunity to leave their masters’ fields under the pretext of joining the hunt of heretics, but who were attracted mainly by the prospect of pillage, lie on the bare ground and shelterless.
It is night. A wax candle sheds a dim light in one of the lower apartments of the villa. A large fire burns in the hearth, the evening being cool. Two knights are engaged in conversation near the fire. One is Lambert, Seigneur of Limoux, who, at the Blois Court of Love, filled the functions of Conservator of the High Privileges of Love. The other is Hugues, Seigneur of Lascy, ex-Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram in the same Court. Although now in full armor, the fur cap that he wears exposes a bandage around his head. The knight was wounded at the siege of Lavaur.
Hugues of Lascy (addressing his companion who has just entered the room)— “Montfort now rests somewhat more easily. One of his equerries, who just left the patient’s room, told me that the count was sleeping and that his fever seems to have gone down.”
Lambert of Limoux— “So much the better, because I have just notified Alyx of Montmorency that she should no longer count upon the physician whom she expected from Lavaur.”
Hugues of Lascy— “Who is he?”
Lambert of Limoux— “Seeing this morning that Montfort was a prey to a high fever and to a painful oppression of the chest that her own surgeon equerry was unable to relieve, the countess remembered having heard one of our prisoners say that the most famous physician of this country, a fanatical heretic, was at the Castle of Lavaur. The countess ordered the prisoner to be brought to her, and offered to set him free upon condition that he would convey to the physician a letter in which a safe conduct was promised him if he consented to come and attend to Montfort, after which the celebrated Esculapius was to be free to return to the beleaguered city.”
Hugues of Lascy— “What an imprudence! How can the countess entrust so precious a life to the care of a heretic?”
Lambert of Limoux— “Dismiss your fears. The scamp immediately left on his errand, and at the solicitation of the countess I waited for the physician at our advanced posts. I waited until now to bring him here. But night set in; he has not appeared; we need no longer expect him. Nevertheless, I left orders for him to be brought hither in case that he should still present himself at the camp, which is highly improbable.”
Hugues of Lascy— “The countess has lost her wits. How could she think of entrusting Montfort’s life to an enemy!”
Lambert of Limoux— “I raised the objection to Alyx of Montmorency. Her answer was that seeing the physician in question is one of those whom these damned heretics call ‘Perfects’, the man would certainly carry his hypocrisy to the point of not betraying the trust reposed in him. She thinks so because the affectation of honesty on the part of these wretches goes beyond all bounds. It is the sublimity of knavery.”
Hugues of Lascy— “No doubt these fanatics are capable of the most wicked affectation, in order to give themselves the semblance of virtue.”
Lambert of Limoux— “There is one thing, however, that is no false semblance, and that is the inveterate resistance offered by these people of Lavaur. Do you know that they defend themselves like lions? Blood of Christ, it looks like a dream! The siege of this accursed town, that has already cost us many captains and soldiers, has now lasted nearly a month, while Chasseneuil, Beziers and Carcassonne were taken almost without striking a blow. These fellows of Lavaur are rude customers!”
Hugues of Lascy— “Their determined and also unexpected resistance, not hitherto encountered by us since our invasion of Albigeois, is attributed to the enthusiasm that certain furiously savage poems are said to have kindled among the people, and which are being sung from place to place by Mylio the Trouvere, the same whom we knew in northern Gaul.”
Lambert of Limoux— “That Mylio must be among the besieged. No doubt it is he who is pricking the Lady of Lavaur, one of the most embittered heretics of the country, to offer the desperate resistance that we meet.”
Hugues of Lascy (with a cruel smile)— “Patience! Patience! This is not a Court of Love where warriors bow down before the authority of women. Blood of Christ! When we shall have seized this infernal castle, a terrible court of justice will be held within its walls, and the Lady of Lavaur will be proclaimed Queen of the Pyre.”