“My child,” the good woman said to me, “there was once in Cambrai a beautiful church that can no longer be seen there now. Nothing as beautiful has ever been encountered. One could have spent an entire year—yes, an entire year—examining it, and there would still have been many things to see. But the most precious thing it contained—there was only one voice as to that, my child—was the clock, the clock that I often spent hours admiring when I was no bigger than you, when I went to school with my little basket under my arm and I had, alas, two good eyes.
“That beautiful clock was bigger—oh, much bigger—than my bedroom. It was like a little church with its profound portal and its pointed bell-tower. At the tip of the steeple there was an angel who, when the hour was about to chime, put his trumpet to his mouth and played a fanfare. Then the angel Gabriel, placed to the left of the clock, waved a lily branch, as if to say Ave Maria to the Holy Virgin, who was on the other side. She, kneeling on her prie-dieu, joined her hands and nodded her head, as if she were responding; ‘The Lord’s will be done.’
“Afterwards, the doors of two niches opened, on which death’s-heads could be seen, and then a book whose pages turned of their own accord to allow devotional thoughts to be read. After which a marvelously soft and plaintive carillon started to ring, and one saw passing on a sort of little gallery the entire passion of Our Lord, from the moment when Judas betrayed him so villainously to the one when Jesus’ head bowed and he rendered his soul to God the Father.
“The angel blew the trumpet again; then everything went back in, everything closed up, everything became motionless and silent.
“Is it not true, my child, that that was a spectacle worthy of admiration, of which you would have loved to be the witness?
“Now I shall tell you on what occasion the church of Notre-Dame de Cambrai was gratified with such a rich present.
“Many years ago, a Prince came to lay siege to Cambrai, but in spite of all his armies, in spite of the great wooden towers from which enormous stones, arrows and flaming torches sprang forth, he could do nothing against the town. A miraculous cloud extended around the walls, like a second rampart, and Our Lady and the angels appeared in the middle of that cloud and rejected the stones, the arrows and the flaming torches among the besiegers, where they caused great damage.
“The enemy Prince, furious at that miraculous protection, blasphemed hideously against the patron saint of Cambrai. He was punished for that in a terrible manner; he lost his sight. Then he humiliated himself beneath the hand that had struck him, lifted the siege, and promised that, if he could recover the usage of his eyes, he would give the church of Our Lady of Grace a golden crown in which his horse could easily turn.
“His repentance found grace with the mother of the Savior; his eyes were opened again, and he came to make honorable amends in the church, with a yellow wax candle in his hand. You can understand his joy, my child. Would you not have a great deal to complain about if, like mine, your eyes no longer saw anything but a dismal obscurity? No more lovely blue sky, no more clouds flying like birds, no more green trees, no more lowers of a thousand colors. Not daring to take a step without the fear of bumping into something, remaining sadly seated all day long…and then, no longer to see one’s children! Night, night, always night! Oh, my little monsieur, one has a great deal to complain about, believe me, when one finds oneself blind!
“The Prince I am telling you about, in the transports of his delight, said aloud that he wanted to offer the church a second present as rare as the first was rich. At those words, a young shepherd from Rome emerged from the crowd, who said, boldly: ‘I will make it. Give me a thousand écus, grant me fourteen years, and I will build you a clock of which people will talk everywhere as one of the seven wonders of the world. Yes, I make an oath on the salvation of my soul! It will be called the marvel of Cambrésis.’
“He was paid the thousand gold pieces; he worked day and night for fourteen years, and he made the beautiful clock that you know. After which he came to see Monseigneur the Bishop and said; ‘Now I am going back to my homeland to join my poor and good mother, whom I have not embraced for fourteen years. I have enclosed in this staff the thousand gold pieces that I have received as a salary. God and the blessed virgin be praised. As long as my guardian angel protects my on the way, I shall bring back to the worthy woman enough to no longer fear poverty.’
“The Bishop of that time was not a God-fearing man. He said to himself: ‘The shepherd is going away to other countries; he might perhaps fabricate another clock more marvelous than this one; ours would lose its renown, not to mention that pilgrims would no longer come to make their devotion in a town where they can be amazed before such pilgrims before such a unique miracle of art. He therefore tried to retain the savant shepherd in Cambrésis; but to each seductive promise the young man replied: ‘All that is not worth as much as my aged mother.’
“‘We’ll send someone to fetch her for you,’ the Bishop said.
“‘Oh, no,’ replied the shepherd. ‘She’d die under your damp and cold sky. My mother lives in the beautiful city of Rome, and even if she could support the fatigue of such a journey, would she want to leave the city of the Pope, the Pope whose encounter every day is worth an indulgence to her?’
“The Bishop then wanted to have the shepherd arrested as a sorcerer and a heretic, but he feared seeing the townspeople revolt at such an indignity.
“He contented himself with sending bad men, with neither faith nor law, to wait for the shepherd as he left the town. The shepherd defended himself bravely, and they were only able to take possession of his staff, which contained the thousand gold pieces. ‘I’ve become poor again,’ he cried, after having escaped from their ferocious hands, but I still have my eyes and my fingers, and I’ll be able to earn a thousand gold pieces a second time.’
“The evil Bishop, to whom the shepherd’s words were reported, then made a resolution inspired by the Devil in person; he had the shepherd’s eyes put out with a red hot iron, and the fingers were cut off both his hands.
“The poor young man died many years afterwards, wandering in the town of Cambrai, where he begged for his bread from door to door. He never saw either the papal city or his mother again.”
At that moment I shivered at a slight sound; it was the farewell that Tréa was giving to her lover. The young woman stood up, took me by the hand, and we came back to the house. All night long, in my dreams, I heard the voice of the blind shepherd weeping and calling for his mother, and in the morning, when I woke up, I thought I saw a pale and mutilated phantom drawing away from my bed.
The clock on which that legend reposes was commenced in 1338 under the episcopacy of Guy de Collemède; it was finished in 1397. Pierre d’Ailly had it improved toward 1400 and it was restored again in 1542 and 1602. Finally, the mechanism of the clock was almost entirely renewed in 1765.
The dial indicated the days of the week, the succession of the months, the signs of the zodiac, the phases of the moon and the various aspects of the sun.
SIMON THE ACCURSED
Lord of Cagnicourt
1137
Guillaume de Cagnicourt made the plaint
that the eagle made in Julien’s emblem:
“Was it necessary to produce plumage
to give velocity to the iron that has pierced my body?
Was it necessary to engender a child
to give me the death-blow?”
(Jean Le Carpentier,
History of Cambrai and Cambrésis,
Cagnicourt Family.)
The daughter of Monseigneur Guy, sire de Villers-Outreaux, had almost passed from life to death during an illness that had held her enfevered from the Sunday of Laetare to the feast of Pentecost.
The lovely Alix had only been brought back by dint of prayers and the vow sworn by her noble father to take the cross and go to the Holy Land to make war against the miscreants, conjointly with the King of France Louis VII.
This is t
he place to say, if I am not to be at fault, that the King of France had undertaken that crusade in order to expiate a profanation of holy places, having burned thirteen hundred people in a church during the sack of Vitry in Pertois.
The good God had mercy on the paternal dolor of the sire de Villers-Outreaux, and rendered Alix to his fervent intercessions.
When the fever of the adolescent had departed, the roses of health were seen to return to her cheeks instead of blanched thinness, the sire de Villers-Outreaux thought of fulfilling his enterprise in Christian loyalty. He sold to the sire de Gonnelieu, in exchange for a large sum, the beautiful wood of twenty muids that he had near his château, and in the middle of which was the farm of Revelon. He reserved, however one muid, of which he made a gift to the Abbaye de Vaucelles.
With that large sum, which was the equivalent of about half his patrimony, Monseigneur Guy armed eight men-at-arms suitably and confided his daughter to the old chaplain Pierre Beaumetz, a man of saintly renown and faithful to any proof. After that he departed to go to join the King of France, not without turning his tearful eyes more than once toward the towers of his domain and not without saying internally, with hash anguish: Adieu forever; alas, never to see my lovely little Alix again! Alas, never to see again the place where the relics of my ancestors lie in peace!
Monseigneur Guy de Villers-Outreaux had already been a crusader for four years, and no one knew anything yet about the good or ill fortune that had overtaken the old knight.
Meanwhile, things had not gone well in his castellany. Among the neighboring lords there were some who pillaged, shamelessly and gradually, the domains of an absentee and an orphan—or, at least the equivalent thereof.
The chaplain protested loudly to Monseigneur Alard; the good prelate of Cambrai swore to chastise the felons as was their due, but old age can make sage designs without the arm being able to put them into execution, and taking no notice of the admonitions of the Bishop, the pillaging castellans continued nevertheless to take from Alix’s domain everything that they pleased. Now, almost everything pleased them.
Despairing of keeping for his lord the little that remained to him of his castellany, the chaplain resolved to put Alix under the protection of the loyal and powerful Guillaume, sire de Cagnicourt, an old friend and brother-in-arms of the sire de Villers-Outreaux.
Guillaume de Cagnicourt, after having made war for some time in the company of sovereign emperor Frederick I, had returned to Cambrésis less than a month before; otherwise, the chaplain would not have expected to wait until then to have recourse to such a protector.
One morning, therefore, Pierre Beaumetz arrived at the Château de Cagnicourt and implored Monseigneur Guillaume to come to the aid of the daughter of his former brother-in-arms. At the priest’s first words, the brave sire, moved to compassion, ordered him to bring the young forsaken orphan to the Château de Cagnicourt immediately.
“For the salvation of my soul,” he swore, “I shall make sure that the domains of a crusader are not ravaged thus, and I shall put the point of my sword so forcefully to the throat of these pillagers that they will cough up in full what they have devoured in detail.
“Go fetch your demoiselle, good and worthy priest. Our virtuous and sapient spouse Isabelle de Béthencourt will educate her as befits a daughter of high rank whose father is fighting in the Holy Land. May I be deemed a coward and an oath-breaker if I do not treat her as well as I would my own daughter!”
Chaplain Pierre Beaumetz, understandably joyful, went swiftly to give this good news to his good lady, who set out immediately for Cagnicourt, so anxious was she to find herself in a safe and decorous place.
She was riding gracefully on a white hack, with her veil raised, as much because of the hat as in order to listen better to the wise words and prudent admonitions of the chaplain relative to the conduct it as appropriate to maintain in the manor of Cagnicourt, when two men suddenly appeared at the end of the causeway.
As a well-educated damoiselle, Alix de Villers-Outreaux lowered her veil and covered her face.
The two strangers stopped short in order to watch them pass at their ease. One of them, still young, appeared to be of high lineage, to judge by his silver spurs, and of irregular mores to judge by his drink-reddened face. The other wore the livery of a hunter
Not content with that insult, they set about speaking discourteous words, such as wine puts on the lips, in loud voices.
The chaplain reprimanded them, as befit and old man and a priest.
In spite of the fact that Pierre Beaumetz had done so mildly and without wishing to offend, the face of the young man went red with anger, and the hunter demanded to know since when had uncouth clerics taken to preaching on the highway to seigneurs of noble rank.
The chaplain judged it necessary to end the dangerous conversation as rapidly as possible, and spurred his horse in order to continue his route.
“Corbleu!” said the hunter, then. “If I were a sire of high lineage, that girl wouldn’t go away without paying the ransom of a kiss on the lips.”
It did not require as much to excite his brutal master. To seize the bridle of the hack and swearing that neither the lady nor the priest would take another step without being ransomed at the price demanded was the affair of a moment, and he set about taking the unseemly ransom by force.
Alix uttered screams of terror.
The chaplain tried to come to her aid and leapt off his horse, but his foot caught in the stirrup and his aggressor, giving the frightened animal a mighty stroke of the whip, sent it galloping across the fields.
The plaints of Pierre Beaumetz were audible for a few moments; after that, nothing was heard but the gallop of the horse and the dull sound of the cadaver bumping continually against a stone or a tree.
Alix had fallen unconscious in the young sire’s arms; he contemplated her with sparkling eyes and then carried her off the road, aided by his hunter, who was manifesting an execrable joy.
Damoiselle Alix’s vassals, having learned of her abrupt departure, had wanted to see the good and tender mistress who had so often aided them in their misery one last time; they assembled to escort her as befit a noble lady, and set off diligently in order to catch up with her before her arrival at the manor of Cagnicourt.
Imagine what they experienced at the sight of the chaplain lying in shreds in the middle of the road.
While they were gazing at the piteous spectacle in a silence of terror and despair they heard feeble stifled cries. It was the voice of demoiselle Alix.
They ran in the direction from which the cries were coming. At the sight of the crowd, two men remounted the horses and take flight, leaving poor Alix de Villers-Outreaux there, bruised and dishonored.
While a few men set off in pursuit of the guilty men, the rest hasten around her; they lavish cares upon her; she opens her eyes, pronounces the name of the Holy Virgin, utters a great sigh and renders her soul.
“Vengeance! Come on! Come on! Let them be slain!” Such are the clamors that rise up on all sides; some run to fetch weapons, others join those who are already pursuing the murderers.
On the way they encountered one of those whose horse had fallen. “I know those who have wickedly kill out mistress and the chaplain,” he shouted at a distance as he saw them coming.
“Say! Say! Let them be slain!” they repeated from all sides.
“It’s young Simon de Cagnicourt and his infernal hunter Amalric.”
“Let them be slain! Let them be slain!” To the Château de Cagnicourt!”
Those cries of vengeance reached the culpable individuals, who, pale and half-dead with fear, only opposed flight to the small number of peasants who had caught up with them, covering them with mud and throwing stones at them.
They escaped them in the end toward nightfall and reached the Château de Cagnicourt, of which they had the drawbridge lowered and the portcullis closed immediately.
Surprised by the clamors that he heard around his manor, M
onseigneur Guillaume went up on to the rampart and enquired as to where such a mob had come from.
He learned only too quickly at the sight of cadavers carried on a stretcher by men carrying torches, as if to excite vengeance more effectively by displaying Simon’s two victims.
Monseigneur Guillaume, stricken by a mortal dolor, had the drawbridge lowered, and bareheaded and unarmed, as pale as a corpse, advanced among the men of Villers-Outreaux. Each of them, at the sight of him, fell back to open a route and maintained a profound silence.
The unfortunate father had great difficulty forming his words, which were interrupted more than once by bitter sobs.
“He has committed a great crime; I shall punish him, oath of a knight! Yes, justice will be done, exemplary and satisfying justice. Depart, worthy people, and leave me to act.”
Then Monseigneur Guillaume went back into his manor, and the people of Villers-Outreaux went away in procession, carrying the two cadavers and reciting prayers for the repose of their souls. No one had any doubt that the honest Seigneur Guillaume would keep his promise faithfully, and that he would punish his son as was his due. Monseigneur Guillaume had never told a lie in his life, and he was also known to be as severe an administrator of justice for veritable crimes as he was merciful to venial faults.
Monseigneur Guillaume, having gone back into the manor through the postern, had his son summoned. On the advice of his hunter, Simon, in order to put on a brave face and to numb himself with regard to his recent actions, had drunk a large bottrine of wine.
Amalric followed him, and hid behind a stout pillar.
Monseigneur Guillaume maintained silence for a moment; then, extending his arms, he said in a low and solemn tone:
“Murderer and oath-breaker, coward who only has valor for slaying priests and raping women, who flees like a veritable coward before a mob of peasants, take off your knight’s spurs, have your head shaved and retire to a convent of austere rule, to spend the rest of your days in penitence. I make you a gift of all my property at the Abbaye de Vaucelles, in order that you can recite prayers night and day with the intention of demoiselle Alix and her chaplain. Go; I give you my malediction in this world and the next.”
The Angel Asrael Page 10