The Iron Pincers; or, Mylio and Karvel: A Tale of the Albigensian Crusades

"The Crusaders! They are back from the Holy Land!" is the affrighted cry that goes up from the gathering of noble ladies and knights congregated at the Court of Love, and taken by surprise by their homing husbands.

The latter mistake the cry for a welcome, and run across the bridge shouting joyfully: "Yes, dear wives! We are back from the Holy Land! Eleven we departed, and eleven we return, thanks to the miraculous protection of the Lord!"

"And of the good St. Arnold, the patron of deceived husbands!" added Goose-Skin aside, as he profited by the tumult created by the new arrivals to slip into the avenue with the trouvere. "What a droll and lucky accident! It is the return of the eleven husbands of your eleven sweethearts that saves you from the ire of that crowd! I shall split my sides with laughter!"

Thanks to the general commotion, the trouvere and the juggler make good their escape, while the eleven doughty crusading knights gladfully call their noble wives to them. The Canoness Deliane, being the only unmarried one of the twelve who met in the orchard of the Lady of Ariol, remains behind. The eleven wives rush into the arms of the valiant crusaders, who, blackened as moles and dusty as tramps, rejoice in the embrace of their faithful spouses.

The first ebullitions of joy having somewhat subsided, Abbot Reynier, clad in the long white robe of the monks of Citeaux, ascends the throne that was until recently occupied by Marphise, the Queen of the Court of Love; commands silence, and, like a new Cuckoo Peter, as Peter the Hermit was popularly called, prepares to spread a new Crusade – this time at home. The Crusade that he has in contemplation is not to the Holy Land. The faith now calls for a raid upon the heretics of the south of Gaul. Silence reigns, and Abbot Reynier, the sycophantic debauchee, who, driven by his concupiscence, only the evening before clandestinely crept into the close of the mill of Chaillotte, addresses the assembly, not in the savage and fiery language of Peter the Hermit, but in measured words, cold and trenchant as the iron of an axe:

"I have accompanied hither the seigneurs Crusaders, who, anxious to meet their chaste wives, hasten to this place where we find the most illustrious seigneurs of Touraine assembled. Ye noble seigneurs, learned trouveres and noble ladies who hear me, the time is past for frivolous games. The enemy is at our gates. The province of Languedoc has become the hot-bed of an execrable heresy, that is slowly invading the rest of Gaul, and menaces the three sanctuaries, arch-sanctuaries of the land – the Church, the Royalty and the Nobility. The wildest of these heretical miscreants, worse by far than the Saracens themselves, take their arguments from the primitive Evangelium and deny both the authority of the Church and the privileges of the seigneurs; they declare the equality of men; they brand as a theft all wealth in the hands of those who did not produce it; worst of all they hold that 'the serf is the equal of the seigneur, and that he who does not work neither shall he eat'!"

Several Nobles' Voices – "This is infamous! This is insanity! To death with the miscreants!"

Abbot Reynier – "It is insanity, it is infamous; furthermore, it is dangerous. The sectaries of this heresy gain daily new proselytes. Their leaders, who are all the more vicious and pernicious seeing they affect to practice the reforms that they preach, acquire in that way a detestable influence over the populace. Their pastors, who replace our own holy Catholic priests, have themselves called 'Perfects.' Finally, in their infernal criminality, they seek to render their own lives exemplary! It is high time that they be exterminated!"

Several Nobles' Voices – "The wretches! The hypocrites! To death with the felons!"

Abbot Reynier – "Languedoc, that fertile region that abounds in wealth, is in a frightful condition. The Catholic clergy are despised; the royal authority is hardly recognized; the nobility is no less humbled than the Church herself, and, shocking to say! unheard-of outrage! the nobility of the region is almost wholly infected by the damnable heresy. Everywhere replaced by popular magistrates, and stripped of all special privileges, the seigneurs are confounded among the common people. Serfdom no longer exists in that country; the nobility works its fields in common with their tenants. Counts and viscounts are seen there engaged in commerce like bourgeois, and growing rich by traffic! Finally, and as if to cap the climax of abomination, the nobility frequently marries Jewish wives, the daughters of opulent merchants!"

Several Nobles' Voices – "Shame! Abomination of desolation! It will be the ruin of Christendom! That calls for vengeance! To the sack with Languedoc! Death to the heretics!"

Abbot Reynier – "It is both a shame and a terrible danger, my brothers and sisters. The heresy is spreading amain. If it triumphs, the Church is done for, and so are royalty and nobility. The masses lose the sense of terror for hell that we inculcate. We would then be compelled to renounce our rights, our land, our property. We would be forced to bid adieu to the happy and comfortable life that we lead. We would have to resign ourselves to live by work like the serfs, the rustics and the bourgeois. We would be condemned to help ourselves with our hands! What a distressing perspective!"

Several Nobles' Voices – "It is the end of the world! It is chaos! An end must be put to these heretics! They must be exterminated!"

Abbot Reynier – "In order to stamp out this heresy we must make a Crusade against Languedoc! Such a war would be but play for so many valiant men who have traveled as far as the Holy Land to fight the Saracens, and it would be even more meritorious in the eyes of God."

The Eleven Crusaders (in chorus) – "Blood of Christ! We have just arrived from Palestine; if God wills it, we are ready to start to-morrow for Languedoc!"

The Eleven Wives (heroically) – "Go, Oh, valiant husbands! We are resigned to everything that the service of God commands! We are resigned even to the sacrifice of having you absent! Depart immediately, ye champions of the Church! May St. Joseph protect us."

Abbot Reynier – "I expected no less from the faith of these valorous knights and from the courage and devotion of their worthy spouses! Oh, dear brothers! If the Crusade to the Holy Land Paradise wins to us, know that the Crusade against Languedoc, a deed that is pious and terrestrial in one, will win for you a double Paradise from God. You will enjoy the heavenly Paradise after death, and before death you will enjoy the terrestrial Paradise of the fertile lands that you will conquer and divide among yourselves! Such is the will of our Holy Father Innocent III. The holy pontiff has issued to us, his servitor, the order to preach this holy war of extermination. I shall read to you, my beloved brothers and sisters, the letter that he has addressed to us on this occasion:

"INNOCENT III TO HIS DEARLY BELOVED SON REYNIER, ABBOT OF CITEAUX:

"We hereby order you to bring to the knowledge of all princes, counts and seigneurs of your province that we summon them to assist you against the heretics of Languedoc; and that, when they shall have arrived in that country, they banish out of it all those whom you, my son Reynier, shall excommunicate; confiscate their goods, and apply towards them the extreme punishment in case they persist in their heresy. We enjoin all Catholics to arm themselves against the heretics of Languedoc whenever my son Reynier may call upon them so to do, and we grant to those who take part in this expedition for the defence of the faith the property of the heretics and all and the same indulgences that we accord to those who depart on the Crusade to Palestine. Up, then, soldiers of Christ! Up, then militia-men of the holy militia! Exterminate impiety with all the means that God may reveal unto you. Fight the heretics with vigorous and merciless hands by waging against them a harder war than against the Saracens, because they are worse. And let the orthodox Catholics be established on all the domains that now belong to the heretics. Amen!"3

The last words of the letter of Pope Innocent III add fuel to the religious enthusiasm of the audience. The noble seigneurs have often heard about the industriousness of the inhabitants of the south of Gaul. They have heard how the people of that region have grown wealthy through a commerce that extends over the Orient and Greece, Italy and Spain; they have heard the praises sung of the soil of Languedoc, which, admirably cultivated, overflows with wine, grain and oil, and abounds in cattle. The conquest of the new and veritable "promised land" is easy. The journey is only about a hundred leagues' distance. What is such a little trip to these doughty fighters, many of whom have traveled as far as Palestine in search of a quarrel? Abbot Reynier's preaching is, accordingly, crowned with completest success. The wives, delighted at being rid again of their husbands, and counting upon their share of the booty of Languedoc, incite the gallant knights to enter again and as soon as possible upon the road of the Crusader against the heretics. What can there be clearer than the heresy of Languedoc? Have not the bedeviled fellows, by abolishing in their south of Gaul the delightful privileges, thanks to which the noble ladies of the north of Gaul live in luxury, pleasures, idleness and libertinage without other thought than to make love, endangered all the delights in the north of Gaul also? Accordingly, mindful of the possible contagion of such a pestilence, and shuddering at the bare thought of their, noble dames that they are, being reduced to live modestly and industriously by their own labor like the villeins and bourgeois, they cry out louder still than their husbands: "To arms! Death to the heretics!"

The Chamber of Sweet Vows dissolves amidst wild commotion. The larger number of the knights, from the Bailiff of the Joy of Joys to the Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram, hasten home to prepare for their departure on the Crusade against Languedoc, where they are to exterminate the heretics of the south of France.

CHAPTER VI

ON TO LANGUEDOC!

Happily thrown into the shade by the arrival of the eleven Crusaders from the Holy Land, Mylio and his companion profit by the address of Abbot Reynier to reach a stone stair that leads down to one of the canals, and to conceal themselves under the arch of the bridge. From their place of concealment the two hear the words of the Abbot of Citeaux and the acclamations of his audience. As much surprised as alarmed at the projected war, seeing that his brother Karvel le Brenn is one of the pastors, or Perfects, of the heretics of Languedoc, the trouvere hastens to leave the garden without being seen, and skirting the banks of the canal he finally arrives at a secluded spot near the ramparts of Blois.

Goose-Skin (who has followed his friend, and who observed profound silence during his hasty march, finally stops out of breath) – "Because you have the legs of a stag you feel not the least consideration for an honest man who is hampered in his walk by a big paunch that heaven has afflicted him with. Oh! Mylio, what a day this has been! It has made me boil over with rage! If water were not a sort of mortal poison to me, I would have rested on the edge of the garden. It is now night. What say you, shall we drop in at the tavern of my friend Gueulette and gather our spirits? Hey? Mylio? Do you not hear me? (strikes him on the shoulder) Helloa, my bold and brave trouvere! Are you dreaming with open eyes?"

Mylio (awakes from his revery and reaches out his hand to the juggler) – "Adieu, I bid you good-bye!"

Goose-Skin – "How! 'Good-bye!' You are going away? You leave a friend – what ingratitude!"

Mylio (rummages in his purse) – "I shall share my purse with you. I have not forgotten the service that you have just rendered me."

Goose-Skin (pockets the money that the trouvere gives him) – "What! And with that you rid yourself of your old companion? And I promised myself so much pleasure running the country with you!"

Mylio – "It is impossible! I shall depart instantly, and take Florette along on the crupper of my horse."

Goose-Skin – "I never indulged in the barbarity of crushing a horse under my weight. You have just given me money. I shall purchase an ass, and shall whip the brute so hard and so incontinently that he will be bound to follow close upon the heels of your horse."

Mylio – "You wish to accompany me without first inquiring what my destination is?"

Goose-Skin – "Oxhorns! Your route will be from castle to castle to charm the ears and eyes of the beautiful ladies, to live high, to amuse yourself. Oh, let me follow you – Each to his role – You will enchant the noble dames, I their servants. Your harp will be for the large hall of the manor, my hurdy-gurdy for the kitchen. Long live joy, and glory to St. Joseph!"

Mylio – "No, no! I renounce this life of license and adventure. I am going back to my brother in Languedoc. I shall marry Florette, and, perhaps, hardly shall I be married, when I may have to leave my wife and go to war!"

Goose-Skin – "To war! Did you say to war?"

Mylio – "Did you not hear that sycophant of an Abbot Reynier preach the extermination of the heretics? My brother is one of their leaders, he is one of the Perfects. I am going to him and shall share the dangers that he runs. So, then, adieu! The journey that I am about to set out upon is not one of pleasure."

Goose-Skin (scratching his ear) – "No! The greater the pity – and yet, if I were sure that I would be no trouble to you on the route, it would please me greatly to accompany you. How can I help it? Friendship, custom – I would be greatly grieved to separate from you. It seems to me that if I leave you I shall for long find the wine bitter and that not a song could issue out of my throat. I can not live without your company."

Mylio – "Your attachment touches my heart. But to go to Languedoc is to plunge into the risks of war."

Goose-Skin – "I shall not deny that I am as timid as a hare, but perhaps I may acquire a more martial turn if I remain near you. Courage, the saying goes, is contagious. Moreover, as you saw, at a pinch I can be good for something. I can render some slight services. I beg you, Mylio, allow that I follow you. Thanks to this money that you have so generously given me, I shall buy a mount – Hold! It occurs to me that my friend Gueulette's father has a mule that he will be glad to sell for almost nothing. The beast is as stubborn as Gueulette herself; and by departing with you I shall prove to that tigress that I can make light of her attractions. That will be my revenge. So, then, I beg of you to let me accompany you."

Mylio – "Very well, my old Goose-Skin! Go and purchase your mule. It is now dark. I shall run for Florette to the house of the worthy woman where I have concealed her. We must leave Blois at the earliest possible. Abbot Reynier or the friends of Foulques may give us trouble if we tarry."

Goose-Skin – "Let them come! Oxhorns! I already feel bold and brave! So far from fearing danger, I would court it! Yes, I defy ye, giants, enchanters, and demons – dare to appear before me! Just dare!"

Mylio and Goose-Skin separate, the latter dancing and singing. Their journey to Languedoc is successfully made.

PART II

THE ALBIGENSIAN HERETICS

CHAPTER I

THE PERFECT'S HOME

Son of Joel, you have been made acquainted with the morals of the noble ladies, of the seigneurs and of the abbots of the north of Gaul. To judge by their ardor in undertaking the Crusade preached by Abbot Reynier against Languedoc, the country infected by a devilish heresy, as the monk said, they must be good Catholics. Oh, Fergan, my ancestor! A century ago, you had occasion to shudder at the sight of the gigantic butchery committed by the Crusaders in Jerusalem, where seventy thousand defenceless Saracens were massacred within two days. The monstrosities of the old Crusaders are now repeated in Gaul herself. A war of extermination has been declared by the Pope, not now against the Saracens, but against the sons of our own country. You shall now be acquainted with the morals of these heretics of Languedoc, these honest and industrious people upon whose heads all the furies are to be unchained.

Lavaur, a flourishing city of the country of Albigeois, lies not far from Albi. Sacrovir le Brenn, the son of Colombaik, and grandson of Fergan the Quarryman, who was a tanner like his father, amassed a little property and settled down with his wife and children near Lavaur towards the year 1060. There he purchased a small tract of land which he cultivated with the aid of his children. One of these died young; the other grew to manhood, married and had a son named Conan le Brenn, who was the father of Karvel the Perfect and Mylio the Trouvere.

The scene is placed in the humble but bright home of Karvel. The house is situated at the extreme end of one of the suburbs of Lavaur, a fortified town about seven leagues from Toulouse, the capital of the marquisate of the same name, whose titulary master now is Raymond VII.

Karvel exercises the profession of physician. He consolidated his father's heritage with a farmer who, together with his family, occupies one part of the house, while the other part is reserved to Karvel and his wife. Karvel is seated in a spacious chamber the narrow windows of which, made of small glass squares that are held fast in a frame of lead, open upon a meadow crossed by the river Agout. The Agout flows not far from the ramparts of Lavaur. A long table, littered with parchments, stands in the center of the chamber. On little shelves, ranged along the walls, are vases with leaves or flowers, or filled with bulbs of medicinal plants. In a corner is a stove over which several copper vessels, used in the distillation of certain herbs, are held over the fire by iron tripods. Morise, Karvel's wife, is attending to these, while Karvel himself, leaning over the table, is poring over some manuscripts on the art of healing.

Karvel is about thirty-six years of age. His admirable face is rendered all the more remarkable by the expression of a high degree of intelligence and of inexhaustible kindness. A long robe of black cloth opening wide at his neck exposes the folds of his shirt that is fastened with silver buttons. His wife Morise is thirty. Her blonde hair, braided in plaits, crowns her lovely face, on which, thanks to a happy mixture, playfulness is combined with gentleness and firmness.

Morise interrupts her labors, remains thoughtful for a moment and, contemplating one of the copper vases which is rather more rounded than the rest, smiles and says to her husband:

"That copper vase reminds me of the capers of poor Mylio, your brother. He loved to put the basin over his head as a casque to make me laugh."

Karvel (smiling sadly) – "But you, in turn, used to compel the giddy-headed boy to taste our bitterest decoctions. Good, dear, Mylio! If only our friend the Lombard merchant succeeded in meeting him in Touraine!"

Morise – "Our friend surely found him easily. All he had to do would be to inquire after the celebrated Mylio the Trouvere. Your brother's name is so well known that its fame reached as far as here. Was it not only day before yesterday that Aimery was reciting to us some of Mylio's songs translated into the language of this region?"

Karvel (smiling again) – "Giraude did not altogether share the enthusiasm of her brother Aimery for those licentious verses, and not that she affects prudery. I have never seen such lofty virtue joined to so much intelligence. Never – except – in yourself!"

Morise – "Fie, flatterer! The idea of comparing me with the Lady of Lavaur! That charming and virtuous woman, who, left a widow at twenty, and although as beautiful as day, and Countess of Lavaur besides, and having only to choose among the wealthiest seigneurs of Languedoc, still preferred to remain single in order to devote her attention wholly to the education of her son Aloys!"

Karvel – "Oh! Say all imaginable good things you please about our friend Giraude, you will still fall short of the full truth – Noble woman! How angelic is her heart! How inexhaustible her charity! Oh, the saying does not lie – 'Never does a poor body knock at her door without leaving happy.'"

Morise – "It is she herself who supervises the school that she founded for little children in order to combat the ignorance and misery that breed all manner of vices. Boys and girls find there an asylum."

Karvel – "And what a high degree of courage did she not display during last year's great epidemic when the sick had to be tended! Noble and saintly woman!"

Morise – "I do admire the solid education that she gives to her son. I shall not soon forget the day when Aloys, about to be twelve, was taken to the City Hall of Lavaur by his mother who said to our consuls: 'My friends, be the tutors of my son. His father would have brought him up, as he was himself, in the respect for the communal franchises. The only privilege that he will some day demand from you, will be to march in the front ranks in case the city is attacked, or of offering you a refuge in our castle. But thanks be to God, we shall continue to enjoy peace; and my son, ever following in the footsteps of his father, will cultivate his lands in common with our tenants. We shall have a holiday in Lavaur when Aloys will have cut his first furrow on our fields, guided by our oldest laborer. Aloys will ever feel proud of handling the food-yielding plow and of cultivating his fields.'"

Karvel – "And do you know that there was no abler farmer in all this region than the old Master of Lavaur? From far and wide they came for his advice. Oh, what a difference between the seigneurs of the north of Gaul and those of our happy region! The former think of nothing but to shine at tourneys and to indulge in a ruinous luxury which they are able to keep up only by overwhelming their serfs with taxes. Here, on the contrary, a few fools excepted, the seigneurs, almost all of whom have risen from the bourgeoisie, cultivate their lands in common friendship with their tenants, or equip vessels for commerce. And so we see here universal prosperity and affluence in our smiling country."

Morise – "Aimery, the brother of the Lady of Lavaur, was telling us only yesterday: 'Languedoc is the envy of all Gaul.'"

Karvel – "By the way of Aimery, is there anything more touching than the unalterable affection that links him to his sister Giraude? When I behold the two enjoying that delicious sentiment I regret all the more the absence of our Mylio, our dearly beloved brother."

Morise – "Patience! Your brother has a good heart. When the first ardor of youth will have spent itself, he will return to us."

Karvel – "I never doubted Mylio's heart. He only yielded to the impetuosity of his age and the vivacity of his nature – to that craving for adventures that, it would seem, asserts itself from time to time in us, the sons of Joel."

Morise – "Yes; in those legends of your family that we have so often read together we have seen Karadeucq the Bagauder, Ronan the Vagre, Amael, who was the favorite of Charles Martel, all of them, driven, like your brother, to adopt a vagabond life in early youth. I feel quite sure that Mylio will repent his light-headedness, and that we shall see him again."

Karvel – "One pleasure only our union has until now been deprived of. We have no children. I should have liked to see Mylio married. The stock of Joel might not then run out."

Morise – "I take charge of his marriage. When your brother comes back to us, he will be able to have his pick among the handsomest girls of Lavaur. Some one of them will know how to pin him down here."

The door of the chamber is suddenly thrown open, and Karvel's farmer neighbor enters precipitately, saying:

"Master Karvel, here are Dame Giraude, her brother and her son! They are carrying in their arms a young girl in a faint."

CHAPTER II

GIRAUDE OF LAVAUR

Just as the Perfect is about to step out of the chamber in which he and his wife Morise were discussing the prospects of Mylio, and to render assistance to the guests that were announced, Aimery, his sister Giraude and her son enter, carrying in Florette in a swoon. The Lady of Lavaur and her brother hold the young girl in their arms. Aloys, a lad of fourteen, holds her feet. Florette is gently deposited upon a couch of woven straw. While Morise runs into another room for a cordial, Karvel takes the sweet girl's pulse. Her dusty clothes and tattered shoes reveal that she walked a long distance. Her forehead is bathed in perspiration. Her face is pale, her respiration troubled.