by Eugène Sue
“Agreed,” answered William Caillet, after carefully listening to the champion, “and from Clermont are we to march straight to Paris?”
“Upon your arrival at Clermont you will receive further instructions from Marcel. To overpower the nobility, dethrone the Regent and chase the foreigners from our soil — that is the provost’s programme. When the campaign shall be over, the hour of Jacques Bonhomme’s enfranchisement will have come. Delivered from the tyranny of the seigneurs and the pillaging of the English, free, happy and at peace, the peasant will then be able to enjoy the fruits of his arduous labors and will be able to taste without molestation the sweet pleasures of the hearth.... Yes, you William Caillet, you Adam the Devil, you Mazurec, and so many others who have been wounded in your tenderest feelings, you will have been the last martyrs of the seigneurs and clergy, you will be the liberators of your kind.”
“Jocelyn, whatever may now happen, vanquisher or vanquished, I can die in peace. My daughter is revenged!” said William Caillet. “I promise to lead more than ten thousand men to the walls of Clermont. The blood of the seigneurs and their priests who have outraged us, the conflagrations of their castles and churches, from which they issued to oppress us, will mark the route of the Jacques.”
“Marcel recalls me to Paris; I shall return to him; but you will meet me at Clermont, where I shall convey to you further instructions.” And pressing Mazurec to his heart: “Adieu, my brother, my poor brother! We shall soon meet again. William, I leave him with you. Watch over the unfortunate lad!”
“I love him as I did my daughter! She will be the topic of our conversation. And we shall fight like men who no longer care for life.”
After this exchange of adieus, Jocelyn turned back to Paris with Rufin the Tankard-smasher on the crupper of his horse.
CHAPTER VII.
CLERMONT.
CHARLES THE WICKED, King of Navarre, occupied at Clermont, in the province of Beauvoisis, the castle of the count of the place — a vast edifice one of whose towers dominated the square called the “Suburb.” The first floor of the donjon, lighted by a long ogive window, formed a large circular hall. There, near a table, sat Charles the Wicked. It was early morning. The prince asked one of his equerries:
“Has the scaffold been erected?”
“Yes, Sire, you can see it from this window. It is just as you ordered it.”
“What face do the bourgeois make?”
“They are in consternation; all the shops are closed; the streets are deserted.”
“And the masses?... the artisans.... Are they heard to murmur?”
“Sire, after yesterday’s massacre, there are none more of the poorer class to be seen ... neither on the streets nor the squares.... The people are scarce.”
“But some must still be left.”
“Those that are left are in consternation and stupor like the bourgeois.”
“All the same, let my Navarrians keep sharp watch at the gates of the town, on the ramparts and on the streets. Let them kill on the spot any bourgeois, peasant or artisan who dares this morning to put his nose outside of his house.”
“The order has been given, Sire. It will be carried out.”
“And the chiefs of those accursed Jacques?”
“They remain impassive, Sire!”
“Blood of Christ! They will become livelier, and that soon.... Has a trevet been procured. Let the executioner hold himself ready.”
“Yes, Sire. Everything is prepared according to your orders.”
“Let everything be ready at the stroke of seven.”
“All shall be ready, Sire.”
Charles the Wicked reflected a moment, and then resumed, taking up an enameled medallion with his monogram that lay near him on the table: “Did the man arrive who was arrested at the gates last night, and who sent me this medallion?”
“Yes, Sire. He has just been brought in unarmed and pinioned, as you ordered. He is kept under watch in the lower hall. What is your pleasure?”
“Let him be brought up.”
The equerry stepped out. Charles the Wicked rose, and approached the window that opened upon the square where the scaffold was erected. After throwing it partly open so as to be able to look out, he reclosed it and returned to his seat near the table, his lips contracted with a sinister smile. He had barely sat down again when the equerry returned preceding the archers in the middle of whom walked Jocelyn the Champion with his hands bound behind his back and his face inflamed with anger. The prince made a sign to the equerry, who thereupon withdrew with the Navarrians, leaving Charles the Wicked and Jocelyn alone, the latter, however, still pinioned.
“Sire, I am the victim either of a mistake or of unworthy treason!” cried Jocelyn. “For the sake of your honor, I hope it is a mistake.... Order me to be unbound.”
“There is no mistake in the case.”
“Then it is treason! To disarm me! To pinion me!... Me, the carrier of the medallion that I sent to you together with a letter that I brought to you from Master Marcel! That is treason, Sire! Disgraceful felony!”
“There is in all this neither mistake nor felony. A truce with your imprudent words!”
“What else is it?”
“A simple measure of prudence,” coolly answered Charles the Wicked; “you signed the letter ‘Jocelyn the Champion’.... Is that your name and profession?’
“Yes, Sire; I am a defender of the oppressed.”
“Did Marcel send you to me?”
“I told you so, and proved it by forwarding the medallion. What do you want of me? Ask; I shall answer.”
“What is the purpose of your message?”
“You shall know it when you will have set me free of my bonds.”
“The bonds do not tie your tongue ... seems to me! You can answer very well as you are.”
“You ignore my character of ambassador! I have come in that capacity.”
“That’s subtle ... but be careful; the minutes are precious; your message is certainly important.... Its success may be endangered by a prolonged silence.”
“Sire, I came to you, if not as a friend, still as an ally. You treat me like an enemy. Master Marcel will be thankful for my reserve — —”
“Very well,” said Charles the Wicked, ringing a bell. The call was forthwith answered by the equerry. “Let this man be taken outside of the town, and the gates closed after him. Do not allow him in again.”
After a brief struggle with himself, Jocelyn resumed: “However outrageous be the reception you give an envoy of Marcel, I shall speak and fulfill my mission.”
At another sign from the King of Navarre, the equerry stepped out again and the former said to Jocelyn: “What is your message?”
“Master Marcel charged me to say to you, Sire, that it was time to open the campaign; the Regent’s army is marching upon Paris; all the vassals are up in arms; numerous troops of Jacques must be approaching Clermont to join you. Indeed, I am astonished at not having met any Jacques.”
“By what gate did you enter Clermont? From what side did you cross the walls?”
“By the gate of the Paris road. It was dark when I arrived and sent you one of the archers who arrested me.”
“You spoke with no soldier?”
“I was locked up alone in one of the turrets of the rampart. I could speak with nobody. I communicated only with your archers.”
“Proceed ... with your message.”
“Marcel wishes to know what your plan of campaign will be when your troops have been reinforced by eight or ten thousand Jacques, who, according to our information, may any time arrive in Clermont.”
“We shall speak about that presently.... First tell me what the public sentiment is in Paris. Are more rebellions feared?”
“The adversaries of Marcel and partisans of the Regent are very active. They seek to mislead the population by imputing to the revolt all the ills that the city suffers from. Royal troops seized Etamps and Corbeil to prevent the arrival of g
rains in Paris and starve out the city. Marcel took the field with the bourgeois militia, and after a murderous conflict he threw the royalists back and secured the subsistence of Paris. But the provost’s adversaries are redoubling their underhand manoeuvres with a view to bring a portion of the bourgeoisie back to the Regent. The people, more accustomed to privations, are easily resigned; full of hope in the future that is to bring them deliverance, they weaken neither in energy nor in devotion to Marcel, especially since the tidings of the revolts of the Jacques reached Paris. The vassals of the whole valley of Montmorency are now in revolt ...”; but suddenly breaking off, Jocelyn said: “Sire, order these bonds to be removed from my hands; they are a disgrace to me and to you.... You treat me like a prisoner!”
“You were saying that the Regent’s partisans are active? Is not Maillart among the leaders in that movement?”
“No ... at least not openly. The avowed leaders of the court party are all nobles; among them is the knight of Charny and the knight James of Pontoise. Prompt and resolute action is necessary. Your chances of reigning over Gaul are excellent if you come to the help of the Parisians, take the field against the forces of the Regent, and utilize, as Master Marcel suggests, the powerful aid offered by the Jacquerie. Next to the clergy and the seigneurs, there are no more implacable enemies of the peasants than the English. Marcel’s purpose in encouraging the insurrections of the Jacques and organizing their bands is above all to hurl them in mass against the English in the name of the country that the invaders are ravaging with their predatory bands, and to drive them from our soil. Triumph is assured if the present enthusiasm of the Jacques is utilized by turning it into that sacred channel towards the safety and deliverance of the country. That is the reason, Sire, why Master Marcel has been seeking to effect the junction of the Jacques with the forces that you command.”
“Our friend Marcel,” Charles the Wicked observed caustically, “made an excellent choice of allies for me in the revolted peasants!” saying which he rang the bell. The equerry entered and left after the prince had whispered a few words in his ear.
“Sire,” again remonstrated Jocelyn, “your manners are mysterious. Are you hatching some other plot against me? You may be frank; I am in your power.”
“There is no plot hatching,” coolly answered Charles the Wicked, shrugging his shoulders. “I am merely taking precautions to insure the quiet and calmness of our interview as becomes people like ourselves.”
“Sire, have I perchance failed in calmness and quiet? My language is self-possessed.”
“So far ... you are right ... but presently your moderation may be put to a severe test ... my precautions are wise — —”
The entrance of two other robust equerries in the company of the prince’s confidante interrupted his last words, and without Jocelyn, whose hands were tied, being able to offer any effective resistance, he was thrown on the floor, where, however, despite his being pinioned, he resented the treatment with Herculean though vain efforts to disengage himself from his assailants.
“By God! You are a Hercules ... what athletic vigor you display! Am I wrong if I take precautions against the consequences of our further interview, despite your assurances of calmness and moderation?”
Not without much difficulty the three equerries finally succeeded in binding Jocelyn’s legs as firmly as his arms. When that was done, Charles the Wicked said: “Place the envoy on the settee near the window. He may sit up or lie down, as he chooses.... You may now go.”
Again alone with Jocelyn, who was writhing in impotent rage, the prince pursued: “Our interview can now proceed peacefully.”
“Oh, Charles the Wicked, every day you strive to justify your name!” cried Jocelyn. “My suspicions did not deceive me. You have some infamous act of treason to inform me of!”
Nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders, the prince answered: “Vassal, if I did you the honor of fearing you I would have had you hanged before this.... If I was betraying Marcel I would be at Compiegne beside the Regent.... You are not hanged, and I am not at Compiegne! Let us now tranquilly resume the conversation that was interrupted when you were speaking about the Jacques.... Well, now, the Jacques did come in bands.... The worthy allies of your friend Marcel came — —”
“Here to Clermont?”
“They came here ... to Clermont, in the number of eight or ten thousand.”
“Where are they?”
“Oh! Oh!... Where are they?” Charles the Wicked answered back with a Satanic leer. “Where are they?... That is an embarrassing question, that is!... Since man is man it has been the despair of those who seek to fathom the secret of where we go ... when we leave this world.... They are where we all shall go!”
“What is that? The Jacques? — —”
“They are where we all shall go.... Do you not understand me?”
“Dead!?” cried Jocelyn, stupefied with terror. “Dead! Massacred! My God!”
“Come, keep cool.... Listen to the details of the adventure ... you are to transmit it to your friends.”
“This man frightens me!” thought Jocelyn, a cold perspiration bathing his forehead. “Is it some trap he is laying for me?”
“The Jacques came,” resumed Charles the Wicked, “those wild beasts that pillage and burn down castles, massacre priests and seigneurs, outrage women, and pitilessly cut the throats of children, to the end, as these devils put it, of annihilating the nobility!”
“Oh, God!” cried Jocelyn, sitting up, “the reprisals of Jacques Bonhomme lasted one day ... his martyrdom centuries! — —”
“Vassal!” the King of Navarre haughtily interrupted Jocelyn, “the rights of the conqueror over the conquered, of the seigneur over the serf, are absolute and from heaven!... A villein or peasant in revolt deserves death. It is the feudal law.”
The champion shivered, and looking fixedly at the King of Navarre said: “Charles the Wicked, you will not let me leave this place alive; you would be a lost man if I carried your words to Marcel!”
“You will leave this place alive,” coldly answered the prince, “and besides my words, you will report the facts to Marcel.”
A prey to irrepressible agony, Jocelyn fell back upon the settee and Charles the Wicked proceeded:
“You will first of all tell Marcel that, however wily he may be, I have not been his dupe. The chiefs of the Jacques whom he sent to me as auxiliaries were expected to become my watchers, and, if need be, my butchers ... if I deviated from the path marked out by that insolent bourgeois. I was in his hands, said he to me, but an ‘instrument that he would break if need be’.... Very well! I have broken one of Marcel’s redoubtable instruments.... I have annihilated the Jacquerie ... and at this very moment my friends, Gaston Phoebus, the Count of Foix and the Captal of Buch are crushing in Meaux the last coils of that serpent of revolt that sought to rise against the nobility — —”
“The Jacquerie crushed! annihilated!” exclaimed Jocelyn, more and more beside himself. But returning to his first suspicion, he gathered voice to say: “Charles the Wicked, you are the most cunning man on earth ... you are laying some trap for me.... If the Jacques came to Clermont to the number of eight or ten thousand, you were not in command of sufficient forces to exterminate them.”
“Sir envoy, you are too hasty in your conclusions. Listen first, you will then be able to judge. I promised facts to you. Here they are. Yesterday, towards noon, I was apprised of the approach of the Jacques. The bourgeoisie of Clermont and the corporation of artisans, infected with the old communal leaven, went out to meet the malefactors and to feast them. I encouraged their plans, and while the Jacques halted in the valley near Clermont, three of their chiefs presented themselves at the drawbridge demanding to entertain me.”
“What were their names?”
“William Caillet ... Adam the Devil ... and Mazurec the Lambkin.... I ordered the three Jacques chiefs to be brought to me; I received them with great courtesy; I touched their hands, called them my comr
ades and gave them fraternal embraces. We agreed that, obedient to Marcel’s wishes, they should be my auxiliaries, and that we would speedily start on the march to Paris. In the meantime their men were to remain encamped in the valley. After issuing their orders to this effect, the three chiefs conferred with me upon the plan of campaign. So said, so done. The three chiefs returned to their encampment to order matters and came back to me. My first act then was to throw all three into prison. I knew that, deprived of their chiefs, the execrable bandits were half overcome. I then sent one of my officers, the Sire of Bigorre, to inform the Jacques that at the conference I had with their chiefs, they desired that their men should immediately begin to exercise themselves with my archers and cavalrymen, in order to accustom themselves to military manoeuvres. The Jacques tumbled into the trap, gladly accepted the proposition, and were formed into battalions.”
Noticing the indignation and rage of Jocelyn, that betrayed themselves through his involuntary twitchings in his bonds, Charles the Wicked interrupted his narrative for a moment in order to interject the remark: “I congratulate myself more and more upon having had you bound fast. Waste not your fury. It will soon have stronger matter upon which to expend itself.... I now proceed.... The bourgeois and artisan guilds of Clermont had tapped a large number of barrels to feast their friends the Jacques with. Their hilarity was soon complete. With loud cries the Jacques called for their first exercise in military marching. The Sire of Bigorre, an able captain, commanded the manoeuvre. He did it in such a way that, after a few marches and countermarches, the Jacques found themselves huddled and crowded together like a herd of cattle at the bottom of the valley, an easy mark to my archers stationed on the surrounding eminences, while my cavalry occupied the only two issues from which the fleers could escape out of the deep hollow.”