by Eugène Sue
“To die!” pondered Nominoë. “I am about to die. Or rather, I am about to be re-born yonder! Oh! I would greet that new life with a shout of joy, were it not for my sorrow at departing from this world at the very moment when there is about to break out the revolt of which my father is the soul, and which, under his direction, might have led to the overthrow of the royal power itself. This is what attaches me to life.”
Absorbed in his meditations, Nominoë had not noticed that for a considerable space of time the sound of a number of bells, though weakened by the distance, reached him through the air-hole of his cell. Suddenly a tumultuous noise that drew nearer and nearer attracted his attention. With the noise of the tumult was speedily mingled the detonations of musketry fire, frequent and well sustained, and but irregularly answered. Little by little the musketry discharges ceased. The turmoil seemed hushed. A long silence ensued — and, presently, a reddish glint of flames penetrated through the air-hole of the cell, reflected itself upon the opposite wall, and speedily threw the same into a flamboyant glare. It was the war upon the castles that broke out! Peace to the huts, war to the palaces!
“The vassals have attacked the feudal manor — they have seized it — they are in the halls! They are now setting it on fire!” cried Nominoë, ecstatic with joy. But immediately struck by an opposite train of thought: “Good God! What will become of Bertha!”
A prey to distracting anxiety, Nominoë dashed himself against the thick and iron-studded door; vainly he sought to break it down with his shoulders. Presently loud cries reached his ears. They proceeded from a throng of people, who, rushing by the air-hole of his cell, shouted aloud to one another:
“The prisoners must be here! This way! this way! break open their cells! The fire is spreading! Save the prisoners! Save the prisoners!”
“God be blessed! Perhaps I may yet see Bertha — and save her once more!” cried Nominoë.
Encouraged by this thought, Nominoë approached his lips to the key-hole and called out:
“Friends! This way! This way!”
“Here I am!” answered the voice of Tankeru. “I have heard you! I am coming!” And turning the key, which was left by the jailer in the lock outside, he opened the door. The blacksmith stepped into the cell of Nominoë.
Tankeru looked ashen pale. He bled. He had received two bayonet thrusts — one in the arm, the other in the thigh. When, with felled bayonets, the soldiers charged upon the delegates of the vassals, the blacksmith, armed with his hammer, a fearful weapon in his hands, succeeded in beating his way through the soldiers and joined his companions who were waiting for him outside the gate. Immediately placing himself at the head of the vassals’ troop, he marched back with them upon the castle and successfully conducted the assault. The forester guards, the soldiers, the Count’s hunting men, concealed behind the embrasures of the windows on the ground floor, directed a plunging fire against the assailants. Many of these fell mortally wounded. The survivors rushed up the wide stairway with Tankeru at their head. The door of the vestibule was beaten down; a stubborn and bloody combat immediately ensued inside the edifice. Victory fell to the vassals. Heated and furious with the ardor of the battle, these threw down and smashed whatever they could lay hands upon in the sumptuous castle. Tankeru and several other peasants proceeded immediately to search for Serdan, Salaun and Nominoë. A fleeing lackey who was caught, pointed out the building in which the prison was situated, and tendered his services to the vassals as a guide while he begged for his life. He led them to the jail. It was then that Tankeru heard Nominoë’s voice and stepped into his cell.
At the aspect of Tina’s father Nominoë forgot the anxious thoughts that but a moment before were assailing him, and fell back terror-stricken as if a living remorse had suddenly risen before him. With features distorted by fury, the blacksmith bounded forward, raising his hammer, over the head of him whom he held responsible for the death of his daughter.
“Strike!” said Nominoë without moving, and lowering his head with resignation. “Strike! It is your right.”
The blacksmith lowered his hammer, remained for a moment steeped in thought, and then said with icy calmness:
“You shall die; but, before you do, you shall know how my daughter died!”
Again the blacksmith paused, and again proceeded:
“Listen, murderer. On the day of the wedding, as you know, I took flight upon seeing that the attempt to disarm the soldiers miscarried. After dark I returned to my house; I knocked at the door; my mother opened it. She was pale; she was sobbing. I asked what was the matter — as yet I knew nothing. She answered: ‘It is all over. Nominoë has fled. He said to Salaun and Tina that they would nevermore see him. The child was brought home in a swoon. A short while ago she regained consciousness. She is upstairs. She is spinning at her wheel as if nothing had happened. She does not speak. She does not weep — she frightens me — I fear the poor girl has gone crazy.’”
“Oh, God!” murmured Nominoë, hiding his face, in his hands. “Poor child! Poor — poor child!”
“Upon hearing these words from my mother,” Tankeru proceeded without seeming to hear the painful wail that escaped Nominoë, “at these words from my mother, I was at first seized with a vertigo. The blood rushed to my brain; I fell seated upon a bench; my head reeled. Presently I could think again. I said to myself — it is done for my daughter, grief will kill her! I went upstairs. Tina, seated before her wheel, spun. Her eyes were fixed; her cheeks were purple; heavy drops of sweat rolled down her forehead. When I came in, her eyes were turned in my direction — she did not budge — she did not recognize me. I believed she was crazy; sobs choked me. I called to her— ‘Tina! Tina! My child!’ No answer; no look of recognition — nothing! nothing! I left her to my mother’s care, and ran to Vannes in quest of a physician. I trembled with fear lest he should arrive too late. I informed the physician of what had happened. He took horse, and followed me. I ran afoot faster than he on horseback. I knocked again at our door, and entering I asked my mother: ‘Is she dead?’ ‘No,’ she answered, ‘she had a spell of weakness, but, upon recovering, she recognized me. I wished to undress her to lay her to bed. She wept and begged me not to take off her wedding clothes. She is now on her bed.’ We ran upstairs with the physician. We found her lying on her bed with her nuptial headdress and clothes. She had grown so pale that I shivered. This time she recognized and stretched out her arms to me. She endeavored to rise; her strength failed her. I approached close to her pale face; she embraced me — her lips were icy — also her cheeks. I realized on the instant that she was expiring. I felt as if my heart was being wrung — I screamed with actual pain! My mother drew me away. I had forgotten the physician. He contemplated my daughter for a long time; he touched her hand, her forehead; and then he motioned to me to leave the room with him. The sudden shock that my daughter had sustained caused all her blood to rush to her heart; a blood vessel had burst; she was dying. That was what the physician said to me. I returned to Tina’s room. She endeavored to smile — what a smile! — and she said to us, to my mother and me: ‘Give me your dear hands, and leave them in mine till the end.’ She pressed them gently, and a little later said: ‘Oh! that warms me up.’ Poor dear child, her hands were so cold! her little hands were already so cold that they froze the very marrow in my bones. I sought to comfort her. She shook her head and said to my mother: ‘Do you see grandma, do you now agree that heaven does send us tokens to prepare us for misfortune? The black crow of this morning? The little dead dove? Do you remember? No — God did not wish me to be the wife of Nominoë. We exchanged rings’ — and she raised to her lips the ring that she wore on her finger— ‘I was his wife, and see me, now, his widow before his death. He married me only out of kindness, but the Lord God did not want that marriage. May His will be done! May Nominoë be happy! Father, you must pardon him, as I pardon him the sorrow that, despite himself, he has caused us. It is not his fault. Had he been able to love me with a husband’s love he w
ould have loved me. Pardon for him — it is the last request of your daughter Tina. She also asks you to bury her in her bridal robe, with her ring and her nuptial ribbons. Good father, adieu! Grandma, adieu. Leave your hands in mine — I die—’”
Tankeru could not finish the sentence. His voice, which trembled more and more as he proceeded, utterly broke down. Sobs convulsed his frame. In the tenderness of his grief he forgot for a moment the revengeful rage that transported him, and he himself repeated the supreme last words of Tina — the pardon that with her last breath she implored for Nominoë! The latter, utterly overwhelmed with the distressful report of Tina’s last hours, listened to it in mournful silence. So profound was his grief, so sincere his remorse, that he never thought of his anxiety concerning the fate of Mademoiselle Plouernel. Suddenly Tankeru’s tears ceased to flow. With them also ceased his tenderness. Only his despair now remained. His fury was rekindled; he picked up the hammer that had fallen at his feet, swung it in the air and rushed upon Nominoë crying:
“I have informed you of the sufferings and the agony of your victim — now, assassin, die!”
The heavy hammer of the blacksmith rose to drop upon the head of Nominoë. The latter jumped aside, threw his arms around Tankeru’s neck, embraced him effusively, and said in a voice choked with tears:
“I do not fear death! Not that! But, believe me, my death would one day weigh heavily upon your conscience! You loved my mother so dearly! Tina has pardoned me, and she asked you to have mercy upon me! You see my tears, my remorse — you loved me once — your heart is good — uncle! uncle! — do not kill me! Eternal remorse would pursue you for the act!”
The touching words of Nominoë, his tender embrace, the memory of his sister, the last words of Tina, the paternal affection he had always felt for his nephew disarmed Tankeru. The hammer slipped from his hand and fell at his feet.
At that moment Serdan and Salaun Lebrenn, whom the vassals had freed, entered precipitately into the cell. Serdan cried out:
“Flee! Flee! The fire is reaching the building!”
Having overheard his son’s words in answer to Tankeru’s threat to kill him, Salaun took the blacksmith’s hand and pressing it warmly in his own, said:
“Brother, I swear to God! Despite the immensity of the wrong that he has done, Nominoë does deserve, if not your pardon, at least your pity!”
“The fire! The fire!” cried several peasants who had descended into the prison to deliver the captives, and who, having regained the stairs, now ran through the gallery of cells. In view of the increasing danger, the blacksmith, Salaun and his son dashed across the black clouds of smoke, picking their way by the ruddy reflections which the conflagration projected upon the steps of the staircase through the prison gate, that looked like the mouth of a roaring furnace. Nominoë followed close upon the steps of his father and the blacksmith who preceded him. Despite the imminence of the danger that he ran, the youth’s thoughts now returned to Mademoiselle Plouernel. In heartrending accents he muttered:
“Oh, woe! Oh, woe! The fire is consuming the castle. What may have become of her? Where may Bertha be?”
“She is safe!” answered Serdan, who, happening to walk close by the side of Nominoë, had overheard him. “The peasants informed us that, once masters of the castle, their companions took care of their good demoiselle. A carriage was quickly hitched to a team of horses, and Mademoiselle Plouernel departed with her nurse and an equerry to Mezlean. The Marchioness, terror-stricken, died of apoplexy.”
Tankeru, Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and Nominoë made their escape through the underground staircase of the prison building. The building itself was now ablaze, the same as all the out-houses appertaining to the castle. Their roofs fell with crash upon crash within the walls that had partly crumbled in the conflagration, and shot up long streamers of fire and sparkling embers. Seeing that the castle itself did not contain the mass of combustible materials of all sorts with which the out-houses were filled, it offered a longer resistance to the conflagration. Off and on a tongue of fire would be seen expiring in the midst of smoke that was still escaping from the windows on the ground floor; the panes of glass had exploded noisily and the frames were charred black. But the fire spared the upper floors where the vassals still pursued their work of devastation, throwing out of the windows pieces of furniture, looking glasses, bedding, books, pictures. Debris of all kinds was heaped in the center of the court of honor, and the insurgents turned the heap into a huge bonfire that lighted the three gibbets which were erected for Salaun, Serdan and Nominoë, but from which now dangled the lifeless bodies of the Count of Plouernel, Abbot Boujaron and Sergeant La Montagne, all three objects of the implacable hatred of the people — the seigneur, the priest and the King’s soldier.
Informed of the death of his brother Gildas who was massacred together with the other delegates of the vassals, Tankeru excepted, Salaun looked for and found the body, and laid it in a grave that he dug with the assistance of Tankeru, Serdan and Nominoë. That funeral duty being fulfilled, Salaun said to them, as he sadly contemplated the scene of wreck and ruin which they had been unable to prevent:
“Oh, my son! my friends! Had we been free, we would have succeeded in preventing these acts of savagery that are so fatal to our cause! Alas, it is now too late! What is the mysterious law that causes the re-vindication of human rights ever to drag excesses in its wake! The vassals of the Count of Plouernel first submitted their grievances humbly to him, and presented the surely legitimate demands which they formulated in the Peasant Code. Had the Count listened to their claims, he would have done an act of humanity and justice, and he would have preserved his privileges. By yielding to the peasants’ wishes, and discontinuing to look upon his peasants as beasts of burden, that man would have shown himself not only just, but also intelligent in his own interest. If these wretched people were spared the homicidal privations that, before taking them to their graves, gradually sap their health, undermine their strength, and render them unfit for continued toil, they would have yielded more wealth to him, and would have rendered more fruitful the seigniorial domains. But no! In his pitiless egotism, the Count of Plouernel answered the peasants’ prayers with disdain, with insult, with murder! They thereupon grew furious, enraged. They returned blow for blow, death for death; gave themselves over to frightful acts of reprisal; killed their seigneur; and now ravage and burn down his castle! It will cost the brother of the Count of Plouernel a good deal to repair the disasters of this single night — twenty times more than it would have cost the Count to ease his vassals for a century and more of the taxes that oppressed them. Alas! This is not an isolated instance in history. Did not the seigneurs and their bishops proceed in the same manner during the Middle Ages towards those communes which our ancestor Fergan the Quarryman was one of the most intrepid to defend? The communiers also began with humble supplications to their seigneurs, or their bishops, to alleviate their taxes. But both seigneurs and bishops ordered their men-at-arms to mow down the ‘villains’ and ‘clowns.’ And, thereupon, ‘clowns’ and ‘villains’ rose in revolt, and, arms in hand, at the price of their blood, and after taking signal vengeance, conquered the franchises and the charters — the safeguards of their freedom! Even during the last century, did not the Reformers first request humbly that they be granted the right to exercise their own cult? But the Church and the Crown answered their prayers with the pyre and wholesale massacres. And thereupon the Reformers in turn, rose in revolt, and, after a half century of bloody religious wars, the Edict of Nantes finally consecrated and confirmed the four edicts of tolerance which the Huguenots had conquered, arms in hand. And yet, as our ancestor Christian the printer said in the days of Francis I, a simple decree of two lines only, recognizing in all the right to exercise their cult, while respecting the cult of others, would have avoided the dreadful catastrophes that Catholic intolerance brought upon France for over fifty years. What is the reason that all civil, political or religious reform can be co
nquered only at the price of blood and of frightful disasters? Alas! simply because the nobility, the clergy and royalty look upon all attempt to curb or clip the rights, that they consider sacred, as an outrage, as theft, and as the ruination of the land; because they never will consent voluntarily to curtail their privileges, these being the source of their power and their wealth; because, even did they grant some measure of reform under the pressure of necessity, they would strive to withdraw what they conceded, the moment they thought the danger was over.”
“But, at least, however violent the reaction against the reforms that are granted, something always remains; some gain always is left,” observed Nominoë. “It is only by this process, slowly, painfully, and step by step, that human progress pursues its course across the ages.”
“Oh!” broke in Salaun. “Without this deep-rooted faith in the irresistible progress of humanity, a progress that is as evident as the sun’s light, what would man be? A sport of accident, a blind creature, fated to wear himself out with impotent efforts in the midst of eternal darkness! No; no. You did not wish that, Oh, God of justice! You have pointed out a sublime goal to man! His free will chooses the path, be it slow or swift, easy or painful, peaceful or bloody. Your sovereign will is bound to be accomplished, it is in process of being accomplished. — And now, my friends, seeing we were not able to prevent these dreadful acts of reprisal, let us rally the peasants. Our troop will be swollen by accessions from all the parishes that are now in revolt. We shall march upon Rennes in order to bring assistance to the people and the bourgeois there in arms. The other chieftains, at the head of the peasants of the districts of Nantes and of Quimper, will, on their part, carry succor to their respective cities in revolt. From that moment, the victorious insurrection, mistress of Brittany as it is of Guyenne, of Languedoc, of Saintonge and of Dauphiné, will impose the PEASANT CODE upon the clergy and the seigniory, and its national reforms upon Louis XIV! — THE LAND SHALL BELONG TO THOSE WHO CULTIVATE IT.”