The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion: A Tale of the Jacquerie

"Hallo, Conrad, to horse! Your valet has been holding your stirrup for the last hour," broke in the cheerful voice of Gerard. "What are you thinking about?"

"I should not have violated the vassal's wife," the Sire of Nointel still mumbled while swinging himself on his horse's back, and taking the route to his manor accompanied by Gerard of Chaumontel.

CHAPTER VII.

WRECKED HEARTS

The ground floor of the house of Alison the Huffy is closed. A lamp burns inside, but the door and windows are bolted within. Aveline-who-never-lied lies half stretched out upon a bench. Her hands lie across her breast, her head reclines on the knees of Alison. She would be thought asleep were it not for the tremors that periodically convulse her frame. Her discolored visage bears the traces of the tears, which, rarer now, still occasionally escape from her swollen eyelids. The tavern-keeper contemplates the unfortunate girl with an expression of profound pity. William Caillet, seated near by, with his elbows on his knees, his forehead in his hands, takes not his eyes from his daughter. He remembered Alison, and relying on her kind-heartedness, had taken Aveline to the tavern with the aid of Adam the Devil, who immediately had gone out again to the tourney to meet Jocelyn the Champion, by whom he was later snatched from the fray.

Suddenly sitting up affrighted, Aveline cried semi-delirious: "They are drowning him… I see it… He is drowned!.. Did you not hear the splash of his body dropping into the water?.. My bridegroom is dead…"

"Dear daughter," said Alison, breaking into tears, "calm yourself… Have confidence in God… They may have had mercy upon him – "

"She is right… This is the hour," said William Caillet in a low hollow voice. "Mazurec was to be drowned at nightfall. Patience! Every night has its morn. The unfortunate man will be avenged."

Hearing a rap at the door, Alison, who was holding Aveline in her arms, turned to William: "Who can it be at this hour?"

The old peasant rose, approached the door and asked: "Who's that?"

"I, Jocelyn the Champion," a voice answered.

"Oh!" murmured Aveline's father, "he comes from the river"; saying which he opened.

Jocelyn entered with quick steps. At the sight, however, of Mazurec's wife, held in a swooning condition in the arms of Alison, he stopped short, turned to Caillet, and whispered to him: "He is saved!"

"He?" cried the serf stupefied. "Saved?"

"Silence!" said Jocelyn, pointing to Aveline. "Such news may prove fatal if too suddenly conveyed."

"Where is he? Where did he take refuge?"

"Adam is bringing him hither… He can hardly stand… I came ahead of them… He is weeping incessantly… We came across the field… The curfew has sounded. We met nobody. Poor Mazurec is saved – "

"I shall go out to meet him," said Caillet, panting with emotion. "Poor Mazurec! Dear son! Dear child!"

Jocelyn approached Aveline, who, with her arms around Alison's neck was sobbing bitterly. "Aveline," said Jocelyn to her, "listen to me, please. Have courage and confidence – "

"He is dead," murmured Aveline moaning and not heeding Jocelyn. "They have drowned him."

"No … he is not dead," Jocelyn went on saying. "There is hope of saving him."

"Good God!" cried Alison, now weeping with joy and embracing Aveline in a transport of happiness. "Do you hear, dear little one? He is not dead."

Aveline joined her hands and essayed to speak, but the words died away on her lips that trembled convulsively.

"This is what happened," explained Jocelyn. "Mazurec was put into a bag and he was thrown into the water. Fortunately, however," Jocelyn hastened to add, seeing Aveline utter a smothered cry, "Adam the Devil and myself, profiting by the darkness, had hidden ourselves among the reeds that border the bank of the river about a hundred paces from the bridge. The current was toward us. With the aid of a long pole we sought to drag towards us the bag in which Mazurec was tied up, and to pull him out in time."

"Oh!" stammered the young girl. "Help came too late."

"No, no! Calm yourself. We succeeded in drawing the bag to the bank. Adam cut it open with one rip of his knife, and we took Mazurec out of the canvas still breathing."

"He lives!" exclaimed the girl in a delirium of joy. Her first movement was to precipitate herself towards the door, and there she fell in the arms of her father, who, having just returned, stood on the threshold.

"Yes, he lives!" said Caillet to his daughter, closing her to his breast. "He lives … and he is here!"

That same instant Mazurec appeared at the threshold, pale, faint, dripping water, his face unrecognizable, and supported by Adam the Devil. Instead of running to the encounter of her husband, Aveline staggered back frightened and cried: "It is not he!"

She did not recognize Mazurec. His crushed eye, encircled with black and blue concussions, his crushed nose, his lips split and swollen, so completely changed his once sweet and attractive features, that the hesitation of the vassal's wife lasted several seconds; but soon recovered from her painful surprise, she threw herself at the neck of Mazurec, and kissed his wounds with frantic excitement.

Mazurec returned the embrace of his wife and murmured sadly: "Oh, poor wife … although I still live, yet you are a widow."

These words, reminding as they did the young couple that they were forever separated by the infamous outrage that Aveline had been the victim of and that might mean maternity to her, caused them both to break forth into a flood of tears that flowed while they remained closely locked in a gloomy and mute embrace.

"Oh!" exclaimed William Caillet, even whose harsh features were now moistened with tears at the sight of the ill-starred couple, "to avenge them… How much blood… Oh! how much blood… What conflagrations … what massacres … the reprisals must be terrible."

"That seigniorial race must be strangled out of existence," put in Adam the Devil, biting his nails with suppressed rage. "They must be extirpated … they must be killed off … all of them … even the whelps in the cradle … not a vestige of the seigniory must be left in existence." And turning to Jocelyn, the peasant added with savage reproach: "And you, you tell us to be patient – "

"Yes," answered Jocelyn, interrupting him; "yes, patience, if you wish on one day to avenge the millions of slaves, serfs and villeins of our race, who for centuries have been dying, crushed down, tortured and massacred by the seigneurs. Yes, patience, if you desire that your vengeance be fruitful and accomplish the deliverance of your brothers! To that end I conjure you, and you, Caillet, also – no partial revolts! Let all the serfs of Gaul rise simultaneously, on one day, at the same signal. The seigniorial race will not see the morrow of that day."

"To wait," replied Adam the Devil, scowling with impatience; "always to wait!"

"And when will the signal of revolt come?" asked Caillet. "Whence is it to come? Answer me that!"

"It will come from Paris, the city of revolts and of popular uprisings," answered Jocelyn; "and that will be within shortly."

"From Paris," exclaimed the two peasants in a voice expressive of astonishment and doubt. "What! Those Parisians … will they be ready to revolt?"

"Like you, the Parisians are tired of the outrages and exactions of the seigneurs; like you, the Parisians are tired of the thieveries of King John and his court, both of whom ruin and starve the country; like you, they are tired of the cowardice of the nobility, the only armed force in the country, and that, nevertheless, allows Gaul to be ravaged by the English; finally, the Parisians are tired of praying and remonstrating with the King to obtain from him the reform of execrable abuses. The Parisians are, therefore, decided to appeal to arms against the royalty. The rupture of the truce with the English, just announced by the royal messenger, will undoubtedly hasten the hour of revolt. However, until that solemn hour shall sound, patience, or all is lost."

"And these Parisians," replied Caillet with redoubled attention, "who directs them? Have they a leader?"

"Yes," answered Jocelyn with enthusiasm, "a most courageous, wise and good man. He is an honor to our country!"

"And his name?"

"Etienne Marcel, a bourgeois, a draper, and provost of the councilmen of Paris. The whole people are with him because he aims at the welfare and the enfranchisement of the people. A large number of the bourgeois of the communal towns, that have fallen back into the royal power and who are ready to rise, are in touch with Marcel. But he realizes that the bourgeois and artisans would be guilty of a wicked act if they did not offer their advice and help to the serfs of the country and aid them also to break the yoke of the seigneurs. By acting in concert – serfs, artisans and bourgeois – we could easily prevail over the seigneurs and the royal house. Count ourselves; count our oppressors. How many are they? A few thousand at the most, while we are millions!"

"That's true," said Caillet, exchanging looks of approval with Adam. "The towns and the country combined, that's the world! The seigneurs and their clergy are insignificant."

"I came to this place," proceeded Jocelyn, "by the advice of Etienne Marcel, calculating that, as a rule, tourneys attract a large number of vassals. I was to ascertain whether the sentiment of rebellion existed in this province as it did in others. I have no longer any doubt on the subject. I have met you, William and Adam, and no longer ago than this afternoon I have seen, much as I regretted the partial and hasty movement, that Jacques Bonhomme, tired of his burden of shame, misery and sufferings, is ripe for action. I shall now return to Paris with a heart full of hope. Therefore, patience! Friends, patience! Soon will be the hour of reprisals sound, the hour of inexorable justice. Then, death to our oppressors!"

"Yes," answered Caillet; "we shall settle the accounts of our ancestors … and I shall settle the accounts of my daughter… Do you see my child? Do you?" and the old peasant pointed to Aveline who sat near Mazurec. Overcome with sorrow, mute, their eyes fixed on the floor and holding each other's hands the smitten couple presented a picture of unutterable woe.

"But coming to think of it," said Jocelyn. "Mazurec cannot remain in this territory."

"I have thought of that," rejoined Caillet. "To-night I shall return to Cramoisy with my daughter and her husband. I know a grotto in the thickest part of the forest. The hiding-place was long of service to Adam. I shall take Mazurec thither. Every night my daughter will take to him a share of our pittance. The poor child feels so desolate that to separate her entirely from her husband would be to kill her. He shall remain in hiding until the day of vengeance shall have arrived. You may rely on me, upon Adam and upon many others."

"But who will give the signal at which the towns and country folks are to rise?" asked Adam the Devil.

"Paris," responded Jocelyn. "Before long I shall have moneys brought to you, or I may bring them myself, with which to purchase arms. Be careful not to awaken the suspicions of the seigneurs. Buy your arms one by one in town … at fairs, and hide them at home. If you know any safe blacksmiths, get them to turn out pikes … town money will furnish you with iron … and with iron you will be able to purchase revenge and freedom. Who has iron has bread!"

A prolonged neighing just outside the door interrupted the conversation. "It is Phoebus, my horse," cried Jocelyn, agreeably reminded that he had left the animal tied close to the tourney. "He must have grown tired of waiting for me, must have snapped the strap and returned to the tavern after me, where, however, he has been only once before. Brave Phoebus," Jocelyn added, proceeding to the door. "This is not the first proof of intelligence that he has given me." Hardly had Jocelyn opened the upper part of the door than the head of Phoebus appeared; the animal neighed anew and licked the hands of his master, who said to him: "Good friend, you shall have a good supply of oats, and then we shall take the road."

"What, Sir, you intend to depart this very night?" asked Alison the Huffy, drying her tears that had not ceased to flow since the return of Mazurec. "Do you mean to depart, despite the dark and the rain? Remain with us at least until to-morrow morning."

"The royal messenger has brought tidings that hasten my return to Paris, my pretty hostess. Keep a corner for me in your heart, and … we shall meet again. I expect to be soon back in Nointel."

"Before leaving us, Sir champion," insisted Alison, rummaging in her pocket, "take these three franks. I owe them to you for having won my case."

"Your case?.. I have not yet pleaded it!"

"You have gained my case without pleading it."

"How is that?"

"This forenoon, when you returned for your horse to ride to the tourney, Simon the Hirsute came out of his house as you passed by. 'Neighbor,' said I to him, 'I have not until now been able to find a champion. I now have one.' 'And where is that valiant champion?' answered Simon sneering. 'There,' said I, 'do you see him? It is that tall young man riding yonder on the bay horse.' Simon then ran after you, and after a careful inspection that took you in from head to foot, he came back crestfallen and said to me: 'Here, neighbor, I give you three florins, and let's be quits.' 'No, neighbor, you shall return to me my twelve florins, or you will have to settle with my champion, if not to-day, to-morrow.' A quarter of an hour later, Simon the Hirsute, who had now turned sweet as honey, brought me my twelve florins. Here are the three promised to you, Sir champion."

"I have not pleaded, and have nothing coming to me from you, my pretty hostess, except a kiss which you will let me have when you hold my stirrup."

"Oh, what a large heart you have, Sir champion!" cordially answered Alison. "One embraces his friends, and I am certain you now entertain some affection for me."

After Phoebus had eaten his fill and Jocelyn had thrown a thick traveling cloak over his armor, he returned to the room. Approaching Mazurec he said to him with deep emotion: "Courage and patience … embrace me … I know not why, but I feel an interest in you beside that which your misfortunes awaken … I shall ere long have clarified my doubts"; and, then addressing Aveline: "Good-bye, poor child; your hopes are shattered; but at least the companion of your sorrows has been saved to you. Often will your tears mingle with his and they will seem less bitter"; turning finally to Caillet and Adam the Devil, whose horny hands he pressed in his own: "Good-bye, brothers … remember your promises; I shall not forget mine; let us know how to wait for the great day of reprisal."

"To see that day and avenge my daughter, to exterminate the nobles and their tonsured helpers, is all I desire," answered Caillet; "after that I shall be ready to die."

After planting a cordial kiss on the red lips of Alison, who was holding his stirrup, and two on her rosy cheeks, Jocelyn the Champion bounded on his horse, and despite the rain and the thick darkness, hastily resumed the road to Paris.

"Happy trip and speedy return!" cried out Alison after him.

PART II.

THE REGENCY OF NORMANDY

CHAPTER I.

THE STATES GENERAL

The Frankish conquerors of Gaul founded about a thousand years before the date of this narrative the first dynasty that reigned in the land. Clovis, the first of the kings, established and his successor followed the custom of almost yearly convoking their leudes, or chiefs of bands, to gatherings that they named Fields of May. At these assemblies, from which the Celtic or conquered people were wholly excluded and to which only the warrior ruler class was admitted, the Frankish chiefs or feudal lords deliberated with their supreme sovereign, the king, in their own or Germanic tongue upon new martial enterprises; or upon new imposts to be laid upon the subjected race. It was at these Fields of May that later, during the usurpatory dominion of the stewards of the palace, the do-nothing kings, those last scions of Clovis, unnerved and degenerate beings, appeared once a year with artificial beards as the grotesque and hollow effigies of royalty. These assemblies were continued under the reign of Charles the Great and the Carlovingian kings – the dynasty that in 752 succeeded that of Clovis. The bishops, accomplices of the conquerors, joined in these assemblies, where, accordingly, only the nobility, that is, the conquerors, and the clergy had seats. Under Hugh Capet and his descendants, the dynasty of the Capets, which succeeded that of the Carlovingians in 987, continued the practice of the Fields of May, but under a different name. At irregular intervals they held in their domains Courts or Parliaments – assemblies composed of seigneurs and prelates, but from which the newly shaping class of bourgeois or townsmen was excluded, along with the artisans and serfs, essentially as was the case under the previous dynasties. These assemblies represented exclusively the interests of the ruling class and its accomplices.

Towards the close of 1290, the legists or lawyers, a new class of plebeian origin, began to enter the parliaments. The royal power, that had reared its head upon the ruins of the independence of the feudal lords, grew ever more oppressive and absolute, and the functions of the parliaments were by degrees restricted to servilely registering and promulgating the royal ordinances, instead of remaining what they originally were, free gatherings where kings, seigneurs and prelates deliberated as peers upon the affairs of the State – that is to say, their own private interests, to the exclusion of those of the people. In course of time, despite these registrations, neither law nor ordinance was carried out, and the government became wholly autocratic. Then came a turn. The spirit of liberty breathed over Gaul, and a species of general insurrection broke out against the crown. The townsmen, entrenched in their towns, the seigneurs in their castles, the bishops in their dioceses, reused to pay the imposts decreed at the royal pleasure. Thus Philip the Fair, in the early part of the eleventh century, was unable to enforce the ordinance that levied a fifth of all incomes. Although the decree was registered by parliament, the officers of the King were met with swords, sticks and showers of stones in Paris, Orleans and other places, and remained unable to fetch the money to the royal treasury. At that juncture Enguerrand de Marigny, an able minister, who was later hanged, said to Philip the Fair: "Fair Sire, you are not the strongest; therefore, instead of ordering, request, pray, entreat, if necessary. To that end convoke a national assembly, States General, composed of prelates, seigneurs and bourgeois or townsmen, jointly deputed. In our days, fair Sire, we must reckon with the townsmen, that bourgeois class that has succeeded in emancipating itself. To that national assembly submit gently, mildly and frankly the needs that press you. If you do, there is a good chance of your wishes being met."

The advice was wise. Philip the Fair followed it. Thus it came about that for the first time since nine centuries, and thanks to the communal insurrections, the bourgeois – those plebeians who represented the subjugated class – took their seats in the national assembly beside the seigneurs, who represented the oppressors, and the bishops, their accomplices. Before these States General, that thus came into existence, the king now appeared in humble posture, affecting poverty and good will, and obtained the levies of men and subsidies that he needed. After Philip the Fair, his descendants, greedy, prodigal and needy, convoked a national assembly whenever they required a new levy of taxes or of men. The bourgeois deputies ever appeared at these assemblies in a defiant mood. They never were convoked except to exact gold and the blood of their race from them. To exact is the correct term. Vain it was for the bourgeois deputies to refuse, as they did, the levies of men and moneys that seemed to them unjust. Their refusal was annulled, and the method of annulment was this: The States General consisted of three estates – the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie – each being represented by an equal number of deputies. Accordingly, the bourgeoisie was out-voted by the combined estates of the nobility and the clergy, both of which were ever found anxious to meet the royal wishes on the head of taxation.

The reason was plain. The prelates and seigneurs, being exempt of taxation in virtue of the privileges of the nobility of the one and the alleged sanctity of the other, and sharing, thanks to the prodigalities of the kings, in the taxes levied on the bourgeoisie, granted with gladsome hearts all the levies for money that the crown ever requested.

Thus stood things at the beginning of the reign of John II. Though the position of the people continued to be grievous, yet marked progress had been made.

CHAPTER II.

ETIENNE MARCEL

The hopeless minority in which the bourgeoisie found itself in the States General rendered its participation in government a fiction. It remained for a great man and the proper juncture in order to turn the fiction into a reality. The juncture set in during the year 1355, when King John II found his treasury empty through his ruinous prodigalities, and Gaul in flames through the pretensions of the King of England to the ownership of the country and his efforts to reconquer it, while in the south Charles the Wicked, King of Navarre, whom John II. had given his daughter in marriage, was arms in hand, capturing several provinces to which he laid claim as part of his wife's dower. The man of the occasion arose in Etienne Marcel.

With the country torn up by war and his treasury bankrupt, John II convoked the States General. He needed stout levies of men and stouter levies of money. The Archbishop of Rouen, then the royal chancellor, haughtily presented the King's demands. But the imperious chancellor had counted without Etienne Marcel, one of the greatest men who ever added luster to the name of Gaul. The great commoner, deputed to the States General by the city of Paris and indignant at seeing the nobility and clergy disregard the just protests of the deputies of the bourgeoisie, thundered against the odious practice, and, sustained by the menacing attitude of the Parisians, he uttered the memorable declaration that the alliance of the nobility and the clergy was no longer to be of controlling force upon the deputies of the bourgeoisie, and that if, contrary to the vote of the bourgeoisie, the seigneurs and prelates granted levies of men and moneys to the King without any guarantee as to the proper employment of such forces and funds for the public welfare, the towns would have to refuse obedience to such decrees and furnish neither men nor moneys to the crown.

These energetic and wise words, never heard before, imposed upon the States General. In the name of the deputies of the bourgeoisie, Marcel submits to the crown the conditions under which the third estate would consent to grant the men and subsidies asked for; and the crown accepts, knowing the people of Paris stood ready to sustain their spokesman. Unfortunately, and the experience was to be more than once made by Marcel, he soon realized the hollowness of royal promises. The moneys granted by the national assembly are insanely dissipated by the King and his courtiers. The levies of men, instead of being employed against the English, whose invasion spread over wider areas of the national territory, are turned to the private wars of the King against some of the seigneurs, and intended either to protect or enlarge his own domains. The audacity of the English redoubles; they break the truce and threaten the very heart of the land; and King John then hastily summons his faithful and well-beloved nobility to join him in the defence of the nation.

The reception given to the royal herald by the valiant jousters, warm from the passage of arms at the tourney of Nointel, has been narrated. Nevertheless, with good or ill will, the majority of the gallants, all of whom were made to fear for their own estates by the foreign invasion, dragged their vassals after them, and joined John II near Poitiers. At the first charge of the English archers the brilliant gathering of knights turn their horses' heads, ply their spurs, cowardly take to flight, and leave the poor people that they had compelled to follow them at the mercy of the invader who falls upon them and ruthlessly puts them to the sword. King John himself remains a prisoner on the field, while his son Charles, Duke of Normandy, a stripling barely twenty years of age, escapes with his brothers the disgraceful defeat of his father only by riding full tilt to Paris, where, in his capacity of Regent, he convokes the States General for the purpose of obtaining fresh sums to ransom the seigneurs who remained in the hands of the enemy.