Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “Such was the glorious mission that opened before Charles the Wicked. It is not yet too late if he would only have the courage, the wisdom and the loyalty to devote himself body and soul to so noble an aim. I shall presently explain that. At present, however, he is, just as ourselves, no other than a rebel against the loyal authority of the Regent. The latter disposes of considerable forces. He has on his side the monarchic tradition, which in the eyes of the people runs back into the night of the ages; he has on his side the royal name, the courtiers, the clergy, the royal officers, the administrators of the revenue and of justice, in short, all those who live upon abuses and exactions — a huge clientage that imparts formidable strength to the Regent. Charles the Wicked is too clear-sighted not to have realized by now all that he lost by destroying the Jacquerie, and how slight his chances now are of usurping the crown. He must have thought of an eventual settlement with the Regent in case our cause, to whose side he still seems to lean, should be seriously compromised, or actually lost.”

  “Do you believe that Charles the Wicked has actually negotiated with the Regent?”

  “Everything makes me think so. The conduct of the King of Navarre during these last days reveals a man who is wavering between ambition to ascend the throne and the fear of a defeat which he would have to pay for with his life and the loss of his domains. He sends us a few insignificant reinforcements, but refuses to enter Paris. He has accepted the title of captain-general of our city, but the queen, his mother, has frequent interviews with the Regent. The hour is critical. The court party exploits at our expense and with its habitual perfidy the present national calamities whose original causes are the insane prodigalities of the court itself. King John and his creatures have driven both towns and country districts to desperation with their acts of rapine and violence and their unbearable imposts. A revolution broke out. We conquered radical reforms. These were expected to inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity unequaled in the annals of the land, because liberty is at once well-being and independence. But liberty is complete only with the possession of the instruments of work.”

  “A profound truth, Master Marcel. Tyranny ever engenders servitude, and servitude misery. Only by freeing them from seigniorial tyranny could the insurrection of the serfs insure to these the enjoyment of the fruits of the earth which they now cultivate for their own butchers.”

  “Yes, but all revolution is arduous and rough. It cannot overnight remedy ills that are the fatal inheritance of the past. Sometimes such ills are even temporarily aggravated by the remedial revolution, as the cauterized wound for a while smarts worse than before. These ills, these sufferings, have been carried to their extreme by the ravages of the English after the battle of Poitiers. The people have valiantly endured them, placing their confidence in the revolution of 1357. The city council, presided over by myself, the ‘governors’ in short, as the body is called, have been forced to exercise a temporary dictatorship, often to resort to energetic and even terrible measures in order to make front against the English at our gates, and the court party inside of our walls. The people at first accepted the dictatorship for the sake of the safety of the city, but they have since fallen away when they found that we could not instantly meet their expectations of material well-being. The people are tired of dictatorship, and now in their credulous despair they lend ear to the mischievous words of their own enemies! They are ready to withdraw from the struggle instead of finishing the work of emancipation! The people now deplore their rebellion; they are ready to curse the councilmen who have sacrificed their repose and their property, and even exposed their lives in the effort of emancipation. They imagine that by humbly submitting to the Regent, that by meekly resuming their yoke, the ills they now suffer from will vanish. Perchance to-morrow the people will be dragging me to the scaffold, me who so recently was their idol!” After a few seconds of silence the provost resumed: “To sum up, we can now barely count with the support of the masses; Charles the Wicked is a doubtful ally; the Regent a formidable adversary.”

  “Unhappily the manifestations of the defection of the people, whom the manoeuvres of the Regent’s party have done their best to promote, have struck me during the last few days. Must all hope be given up, Master Marcel?”

  “No! No! I merely wished to establish the critical aspect of our situation. But all is not lost. By virtue of their very fickleness the people are capable of sudden revulsions. A considerable section of the bourgeoisie, firmly resolved to carry our work to a happy issue, in the language of my device, will go with us to the end, whatever the dangers be that menace our lives and property in case of failure. We still can make our influence felt among the masses; we can arouse their enthusiasm, wrench them free from their acquiesence in the enemy’s suggestions, adopt terrible measures against these, and gain a decisive victory over the Regent. But seeing that the Jacquerie is annihilated, it would be insane to undertake such a struggle without the support of Charles the Wicked. This, then, is our last resource. This very night I shall induce the prince to declare himself against the Regent, and sufficiently compromise himself so as to force him to the alternative of vanquishing with us and ruling, or of losing both his life and his property should the Regent prevail. If he accepts my propositions, then Charles the Wicked, having staked his head for a crown, will enter Paris at the head of his Navarrians. We shall make a supreme effort; we shall arouse the people and shall take the field against the Regent. If we are victorious, we shall then rouse against the English the peasants that have escaped the vengeance of the nobility. The foreigner will be beaten back; delivered from her domestic and her foreign foes, Gaul will delegate her sovereignty to Charles of Navarre under control of the national assembly. Our provinces will then form a powerful confederation with us as the center.”

  “Such a result would be admirable. But would Charles the Wicked keep his promise once he is crowned King of France? Will he submit to the laws of the States General?”

  “He would have submitted to all our conditions before the annihilation of the Jacquerie which was a counterpoise to his bands of mercenaries. But when he mounts the throne the force of circumstances will compel him to keep a large number of the reforms very much like a gift of joy. Thus a part of our conquests over the royalty will have been assured. Nor is that all. The masses, still steeped in ignorance are slavish. Accustomed through centuries to being governed despotically by a prince of royal lineage, they can arrive only by degrees at free government under elective magistrates, as were the communal towns at the time of their enfranchisement. But experience will be gradually gained. Is not the mere fact of the overthrow of one dynasty and the setting up of a new at the will of the citizens, an immense step forward? The divine prestige of the royalty will have received a death-blow. The power of choosing a sovereign implies the right to depose him. And, finally, let us not lose sight of this, always supposing that Charles the Wicked succeeds in the war: Gaul will be delivered of the English; after that, whatever may happen, the nobility will preserve the memory of the formidable insurrection of the Jacques; it will feel itself compelled to ease the yoke, realizing that, driven again to extremities, Jacques Bonhomme might again wield the fork, the scythe and the torch.”

  “Aye, Master Marcel, the future is bright ... provided Charles the Wicked openly pronounces against the Regent, and we triumph.”

  “I have weighed everything, calculated everything. If we succumb in this supreme conflict, Charles the Wicked will share our defeat and, like us, will pay for his rebellion with his head. He is, at best, a wicked prince; the Regent will return to Paris just as he would inevitably do if the King of Navarre refuses to embrace our cause. It would be an act of folly to try to oppose the Regent without him. Let us examine this last hypothesis. Aiming at putting an end to the hesitations of Charles the Wicked, I have forced him to decide this very night—”

  “This very night?”

  “At one o’clock to-morrow morning I shall await the King of Navarre at the S
t. Antoine gate. I declared to him yesterday at St. Denis that I shall no longer count with him, and shall look upon him as a traitor if at the hour I mentioned he does not appear at the rendezvous so as to enter Paris with me and to solemnly announce to-morrow at the town-hall his adherence to our cause, and the support of his arms. We are left to our own forces if Charles the Wicked fails to put in his appearance to-night.”

  “What did he answer you, Master Marcel?”

  “He answered me in his usual manner, that he would think it over. Now, then, if the fear of losing his domains and of risking his head carries the day over his ambition, he will go and throw himself at the feet of the Regent and will offer him his services in atonement for his past conduct. The Regent has great interest in temporizing with such an adversary. He will grant him pardon, and the two will march upon Paris at the head of their combined troops. Our city will then fall back under the monarchic yoke.”

  “Then, Master Marcel,” cried Jocelyn, “let us call to arms all the stout-hearted people of the city; let us then close our gates and lock ourselves behind our ramparts that are now so well fortified by your foresight and zeal; let us be killed to the last man; let not the Regent re-enter his capital but through the breach that he will have to make over our corpses!”

  “Such a resolution is heroic. But you forget the horrors that follow the capture of a city by assault. You forget Meaux delivered to the flames by the Captal of Buch and the Count of Foix; the women assaulted, old men and children slaughtered or perishing in the flames! Shall I deliver Paris to such a fate, Paris the head and heart of Gaul? No! To attempt to resist the Regent without the assistance of Charles the Wicked would be to expose ourselves to annihilation. Let us prefer a salutary sacrifice to a sterile heroism. Even our defeat will be fruitful.”

  “Master Marcel, I do not understand you now.”

  “Whatever the stubbornness and duplicity of the Regent may be, the terrible lessons he has received will not be lost upon him. A fugitive before the popular uprising, he was forced to leave the palace of the Louvre furtively ... he has seen himself on the point of losing his crown. If, thanks to the submission of the Parisians, he should re-enter the city, however he may seek to satiate his vengeance and satisfy his royal pride, he will feel compelled to observe certain reforms. These, no doubt, will be less numerous than Charles the Wicked would have accepted in order to consolidate his usurpation. Nevertheless, whatever they be and however few, these reforms will remain safe to posterity, our revolution will have borne some fruit, the burden that weighed upon the people will have been lightened. Do you grasp my sense?... What is it that astonishes you?”

  “In order to satisfy the resentment of the Regent and slake his vengeance, the heads of the chiefs of the rebellion will be demanded.”

  “Some heads will be demanded!” answered Marcel with Spartan simplicity. “Yes, the Regent will demand my own head first of all and also the heads of the governors, the principal leaders in the rebellion.... Very well! We shall deliver our heads to the Regent.... My friends and I are in accord upon that.... This conversation elucidates, as I expected of it, the facts that are to be considered, and confirms me in my resolution. At one in the morning I shall proceed to the gate of St. Antoine, where I shall expect to meet Charles the Wicked. If he fails to come, I shall take horse and ride to the Regent’s camp at Charenton. I shall offer him my life; if that does not suffice him, I shall offer him the lives of my friends: they have authorized me to dispose of their heads. In exchange, I shall demand of the prince the observances of the reforms sworn to in 1357. I shall demand a good deal so as to obtain something.... These reforms will smooth the day for the advent of our plan of government, based upon the federation of the provinces and the permanence of the sovereign national assemblies that will at first delegate the appearance of a crown to a phantom king, and later, by wholly suppressing the idol, suppress royalty itself. The government of free Gaul, free and confederated, will then be again what it was at the time of the invasion of Cæsar, as we learn from history and as one of your family’s legends confirms.”

  “At the time of the abolition of the commune of Laon and of so many other municipal republics that Louis the Lusty destroyed, my ancestor Fergan the Quarryman said to his son, who despaired of the future: ‘Hope, my child, hope!... Have faith in the slow, painful but irresistible progress of the race.’ He spoke truly! Thanks to your genius, I might have seen in this very century the municipal government of the old communes — free, benevolent and wise governments — applied no longer to one town only but to all Gaul. Be praised for having promoted such a step forward.”

  “That is my dream! Social unity and administrative uniformity. Political rights made commensurate with civic rights. The principles of authority transferred from the crown to the nation. The States General changed into a national assembly under the control of the people of the towns and the country, and the living forces of the nation; and the popular sovereignty attested by the overthrow of one dynasty and the transfer of the crown to another, until the day of the total suppression of the royalty, the last vestige of the Frankish conquest!... That was my dream! Time will change the dream into reality. May be I stepped in advance of my century.... Is that wrong?... That government of the future will have been practiced three years!... Our children will place all the stronger reliance in the prospect of their deliverance when, instructed by the past, they will know that their fathers actually held their deliverance in their own hands; that, having one day assumed their freedom, they bent and chased away the royal incumbent, and that, if they relapsed under the yoke, it was because on the eve of final triumph they yielded to discouragement; it was because, after having overcome formidable obstacles, they grew faint-hearted at the moment of reaching the ultimate goal. The lesson will be great and profitable to our children. Perchance the death of myself and my friends may render the lesson all the more striking! Our death will have been as fruitful as our life!... The scaffold will crown it!”

  CHAPTER IV.

  PLOTTERS UNCOVERED.

  WRAPT IN WONDERMENT and admiration, Jocelyn was contemplating the noble figure of Etienne Marcel that now seemed transfigured in the brilliancy of the sentiments he had given utterance to, when a knock was heard at the door. Jocelyn opened and Denise said to him:

  “Jocelyn, your friend Rufin wishes to speak to you without delay.”

  “Master Marcel,” the champion observed, “it must be about the plot that Rufin thinks to have discovered.”

  “My child, tell Rufin to come in,” said the provost to his niece.

  Rufin entered immediately. He was deeply agitated: “Master Marcel,” he said, “I believe the goddess Fortuna served me as well this time as she did the night I discovered the flight of the Regent”; and drawing a letter from his pocket he handed it over to Marcel, adding: “Be kind enough to post yourself thereon; if the message is to be judged by the messenger, it bodes nothing good.”

  Marcel took the letter, broke the seal, trembled when he recognized the hand that wrote it, and carefully read its contents, while Jocelyn, leading the student to the outer end of the cabinet, said to him in a low voice:

  “How did you get the letter, friend Rufin?”

  “By Hercules! I got it ... by the force of my fist! without, however, forgetting the aid that my chum Nicholas the Thin-skinned and two Scotch students lent me. I became acquainted with the last two about a year ago in a contest over the flagrant superiority of the rhetoric of Fichetus over that of Faber. Our discussion having turned from oral to manual, to all the greater honor of rhetoric, I preserved a striking souvenir of their fists—”

  “The minutes are precious, Rufin; grave matters are at stake; I beseech you, come to the point.”

  “This evening, towards nightfall, I was walking on Oysters-are-fried-here street, totally oblivious of the perfumes exhaled by the fries, although I had dined only on a herring, and thinking only of that treasure, that pearl, or rather of that bouquet of ros
es that Dame Venus, her godmother, christened by the succulent name of Alison—”

  “For heaven’s sake, Rufin!”

  “Keep cool; I shall bid my soul hold its tongue. I shall come to the point. Well, then, I noticed a large crowd at the other end of the street; I elbowed my way in and reached its front ranks. There I saw a certain large-boned scamp with a furred cap whom I had come across before and knew to be a bitter partisan of Maillart. The said large-boned scamp was perorating against Master Marcel, attributing to him all the ills we are suffering from and crying: ‘We must put an end to the tyranny of the governors. The Regent’s army is gathered at Charenton and is about to march upon us. The Regent is furious. He wishes to set fire to his good city of Paris and slaughter its townsmen. Maillart, the true friend of the people, is alone able to make a front against the Regent or to negotiate with him and thus save the city from the ruin that threatens it.’”

  “Always that Maillart!”

  “Such language exasperated me. I was on the point of breaking out and confounding the man of the furred cap whose words, I must say so, were having their effect upon the mob. Some of them had even begun to vituperate Master Marcel and the governors, when suddenly I heard someone behind me say in Latin: ‘The water begins to boil, the fish must now be thrown in,’ and another voice answered, also in Latin: ‘Then let us hasten to notify the master cook.’ Seeking to fathom the mysterious meaning of these parables, I turned towards my Latinists at the moment when they began to cry, this time in French: ‘Good luck to Maillart, to the devil with Marcel! He is a criminal! A traitor! He plots with the Navarrians! Good luck to Maillart! He alone can put an end to our ills!’ A portion of the crowd took up the cries, whereupon the lumbering scamp of the furred cap closed his peroration and came down from the box on which he had been perched. The two Latinists then approached him, and while the crowd was dispersing my three gentlemen stepped aside and conducted an animated discussion. I did not lose sight of them; the three walked on together and I followed, catching these broken words that they let drop: ‘rendezvous,’ ‘horse,’ ‘arcade of St. Nicholas.’ You know how even at mid-day the arcade of St. Nicholas is dark and deserted. Night was falling fast. The idea struck me that my three worthies might be having some suspicious rendezvous at that secluded spot, because the mysterious Latin words would not leave my head. ‘The water begins to boil’ might mean the boiling of the popular rage; ‘the fish that was to be thrown in the boiling water,’ might mean Master Marcel; finally, ‘the cook who was to be notified’—”