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

Without Etienne Marcel, the draper, Gaul would have been lost; but the ascendancy of his genius and patriotism dominated the assembly. In answer to the chancellor, who conveyed the demands of the Regent, Marcel declared that before attending to the ransom of the King and knights, the nation's safety demanded attention. The nation's safety demanded urgent and radical reforms. He recited them. And, losing sight of nothing, but developing superhuman activity, he caused Paris to be protected with new fortifications in order to render the town safe from the English who had advanced as far as St. Cloud. He armed the people; organized the street police; made provisions for food by large importations of grains; calmed and reassured the alarmed spirits; by his example imparted a similar temper to the other towns; and, faithful in the midst of all other cares to the plan of reform that he had pursued and ripened during the long years of his obscure and industrious life, he caused the appointment of a committee of twenty-four bourgeois deputies charged with the drafting of the reforms that were to be demanded from the Regent. The deputies of the nobility and the clergy withdrew disdainfully from the national assembly, shocked at the audacity of the bourgeois legislators. These, however, masters of the situation and laboring under the high inspiration of Etienne Marcel, drew up a plan of reforms that in itself meant an immense revolution. It was the republican government of the ancient communes of Gaul, now extended beyond the confines of the town and made to cover the entire nation; it was the substitution of the power of deputies elected by the whole country for the absolute power of the crown. The King becomes merely the chief agent of the States General, and he has no power without their sovereign consent to dispose of a single man, or a single florin. These reforms, the fruit of many vigils on the part of Etienne Marcel, were accepted and solemnly sworn to by Charles, Duke of Normandy, in the capacity of Regent for his father, then a prisoner in the English camp, and they were promulgated in the principal towns of Gaul with the sound of trumpets, under the title of "Royal Ordinance of the 17th day of January, 1357." The ordinance was as follows:

The States General shall henceforth meet whenever they may think fit and without requiring the consent of the King, to deliberate upon the government of the kingdom, and the vote of the nobility and clergy shall have no binding power over the deputies of the communes.

The members of the States General shall be under the protection of the king, the Duke of Normandy and their successors. And, furthermore, members of the States General shall be free to travel throughout the kingdom with an armed escort that shall be charged with causing them to be respected.

The moneys proceeding from the subsidies granted by the States General shall be levied and distributed, not by royal officers, but by deputies elected by the States General; and they shall swear to resist all orders of the King and his ministers, in case the King or his ministers wish to turn the moneys to other expenses than those provided for by the States General.

The King shall grant no pardon for murder, rape, abduction or infringement of truce.

The offices of justice shall not be sold or farmed out.

The costs of processes, inquests and administration in the chambers of parliament and of accounts shall be lowered, and the officials of those departments who may refuse, shall be expelled as extortionists of the public fund.

All seizures of food, clothing or money in the name and for the service of the King or of his family shall be forbidden; and power is given to the inhabitants to gather at the call of their town bell and to pursue the seizers.

To the end of avoiding all monopoly and extortion, no officer of the King shall be allowed to carry on any trade in merchandise or money.

The expenses of the household of the King, the Dauphin and of the princes shall be moderated and reduced to reasonable bounds by the States General; and the stewards of the royal households shall be obliged to pay for what they buy.

Finally, the King, the Dauphin, the princes, the nobility, the prelates of whatever rank, shall bear the burden of taxation the same as all other citizens, as justice requires.

Compared with the Fields of May of olden days, where the conquering Franks and their bishops disposed of the people of Gaul like cattle, the national assemblies, held under the ordinance that Etienne Marcel had wrung from the crown – assemblies dominated by the industrious class which by its labor, commerce, trades and arts enriched the country while the royalty, nobility and clergy devoured it – the progress was gigantic.

No less distinguished were the services of Etienne Marcel at this juncture against the foreign invader, who was advancing with rapid marches upon the capital of the land. Paris, originally circumscribed to the island that is washed by the two arms of the Seine, extended itself from century to century beyond its original cradle to the right and to the left, until under the reign of John II it had grown to a town of large proportions. The old part of the city, that which is bounded by the two arms of the river, continued at this time to be called the Cité and served as the headquarters of the clergy, whose houses seemed to cuddle under the shadow of the high towers of the tall church of Notre Dame. The Bishop of Paris had almost the entire Cité for his jurisdiction. On the right bank of the Seine and at the place where rose the thick tower of the gate of the Louvre, began the fortified premises of what was generally called the town. It was peopled with merchants, artisans and bourgeois, and it contained the square at one end of which stood the pillory, where malefactors were exposed or executed before taking their corpses to the gibbets of Montfaucon. The girdle of fortresses that surround Paris to the north extends from the thick tower of the Louvre to the gate of S. Honoré. From there, the wall winding towards the Coquiller gate, reaches the gate of Mont Martre, makes a curve near St. Denis street, continues in the direction of the gate of St. Antoine, and arrives at the Barbette gate, which is flanked by the large tower of Billy, built on the borders of the Seine opposite Notre Dame and the isle of Cows. The girdle of the ramparts, interrupted at this spot by the river, is resumed on the left bank. It skirts the quarter of the University, which is inhabited by the students and which has for its issues the gates of St. Vincent, St. Marcel, St. Genevieve, St. James and St. Germain. Thence it flanks the palace of Nesle and runs out into the tower of Philip-Hamelin, built on the left bank opposite the tower of the Louvre, which rises on the right bank. This vast enclosure which insured the defense of Paris was completed by arduous labors of fortification due to the genius and the prodigious activity of Etienne Marcel. He caused the ramparts to be equipped with numerous engines of war of the new kind that then began to come in vogue named cannons– tubes made of bars of iron held fast by rings of the same metal. By means of a powder recently invented by a German monk, these cannons expelled stone and iron balls with what was then considered marvelous velocity, force and noise, and to a then equally marvelous distance. Without those immense works, all of which were executed within three months, the capital of Gaul would have inevitably fallen into the hands of the English.

CHAPTER III.

THE MAN OF THE FURRED CAP

Many weeks had elapsed since the night when Jocelyn the Champion rode back to Paris from the little village of Nointel. A man wearing a woolen cap, clad in an old blouse of grey material, carrying a knapsack on his back and a heavy stick in his hand entered Paris by the gate of St. Denis. It was William Caillet, the father of Aveline-who-never-lied. The old peasant looked even somberer than when last seen at Nointel. His hollow and fiery eyes, his sunken cheeks, his bitter smile – all betokened a profound and concentrated sorrow. This, however, yielded presently to astonishment at the tumultuous aspect of the streets of Paris, where he now found himself for the first time in his life. The multitude of busy people wearing different costumes, the horses, carriages, litters that crossed in all directions, gave the rustic a feeling akin to vertigo, while his ears rung with the deafening cries incessantly uttered by the merchants and their apprentices, who, standing at the doors of their shops solicited customers. "Hot stoves! Hot baths!" cried the keepers of bathing houses; "Fresh and warm cakes!" cried the pastry venders; "Fresh wine, just arrived from Argenteuil and Suresne!" cried a tavern-keeper armed with a large pewter tumbler, and with looks and gestures inviting the topers to drink; "Whose coat needs mending?" asked the tailor; "The oven is warm, who wants to have his bread baked?" vociferated a baker; further off a royal edict was being proclaimed, announced by drum and trumpet; in among the crowd several monks, collectors for a brotherhood, held out their purses and cried: "Give for the ransom of the souls in purgatory!" while beggars, exhibiting their real or assumed deformities exclaimed: "Give to the poor, for the love of God!" Before venturing further into Paris, William Caillet sat down on a stone step placed near a door meaning both to rest himself and to accustom his eyes and ears to a noise that was so utterly new to him.

Presently a distant rumbling, proceeding from Mauconseil street, almost drowned the cross-fire of cries. At intervals the roll of drums and mournful clarion notes mingled with the approaching and rumbling din, and soon Caillet heard repeated from mouth to mouth in accents at once sorrowful and angry: "That's the funeral of the poor Perrin Macé." All the passers-by started, and a great number of merchants and apprentices left their shops in charge of the women behind the counters, and ran towards Mauconseil and Oysters-are-fried-here streets, where the funeral procession was to pass after traversing St. Denis street.

Struck by the eagerness of the Parisians to witness the funeral, which seemed to be a matter of public mourning, Caillet followed the crowd, whose confluence from several other streets soon became considerable. Accident threw him near a student of the University of Paris. The young man, about twenty years of age, was named Rufin the Tankard-smasher, a nickname that was borne out by the jovial and convivial mien of the strapping youngster. He had on his head a crazy felt hat that age had rendered yellow, and he wore a black coat no less patched up than his hose. He looked as threadbare as ever did a Paris student. Held back by his rustic timidity, Caillet did not venture to open a conversation with Rufin the Tankard-smasher, notwithstanding several remarks dropped by the crowd around him and by the student himself increased the rustic's curiosity in the young man.

"Poor Perrin Macé!" said a Parisian, "To have his hand cut off and then be hanged without trial! And all because it so pleased the Regent and his courtiers!"

"That's the way the court respects the famous ordinance of our Marcel!"

"Oh, this nobility!.. It is the pest and ruination of the country!.. It and its clergy!"

"The nobles!" cried Rufin the Tankard-smasher; "they are merely caparisoned and plumed parade horses; good to prance and not to carry or draw. The moment they are called to do work, they rear and kick!"

"And yet, master student," ventured a large sized man with a furred cap, "the noble knighthood deserves our respect."

"The knighthood!" cried Rufin, laughing contemptuously, "the knighthood is good only to figure in tourneys, attracted by the lure of profit. The horse and arms of the vanquished belong to the vanquisher. By Jupiter! Those doughty chaps seek to throw down their adversaries just as we students seek to knock down the nine-pins at a bowling game on the college grounds. But so soon as their skins are in danger in battle, where there is no profit to be fetched other than blows, that same nobility shamefully takes to flight, as happened at the battle of Poitiers, where it gave the signal for run-who-run-can to an army of forty thousand men pitted against only eight thousand English archers! By the bowels of the Pope! Your nobles are not men, they are hares!"

"Come, now, master student," laughingly put in another townsman; "let us not be too hard upon the nobility; did it not rid us of King John by leaving him a prisoner in the hands of the English?"

"Yes!" exclaimed another, "but we shall have to pay the royal ransom, and in the meantime must submit to the government of the Regent, a stripling of twenty years, who orders people to be hanged when they demand the moneys owing to them by the royal treasury, and object when we strike them, as did Perrin Macé."

"With the aid of heaven, our friend Marcel will soon put a stop to that sort of thing."

"Marcel is the providence of Paris."

"Friends," resumed the man of the furred cap, smiling disdainfully, "you seem to have nothing but the name of Marcel in your mouths. Although Master Marcel is a provost and president of the town council, yet he is not everything on earth. The other councilmen are his superiors in trade. Take, for instance, John Maillart, there you have a worthy townsman – "

"Who is it dare compare others with the great Marcel!" cried Rufin the Tankard-smasher. "By Jupiter, whoever utters such foolishness quacks like a goose!"

"Hm! Hm!" grumbled the man of the furred cap; "I said so!"

"Then it is you who quack like a goose!" promptly replied the Tankard-smasher. "What! You dare maintain that Marcel is not the foremost townsman! He, the friend of the people!"

"Aye, aye!" came from the crowd. "Marcel is our saviour. Without him Paris would by this time have been taken and sacked by the English!"

"Marcel," resumed the Tankard-smasher with increasing enthusiasm, "he who restored economy in our finances, order and security in the city! By the bowels of the Pope! I know something about that! Only a fortnight ago, towards midnight, I with my chum Nicolas the Thin-skinned were beating at the door of a public house on Trace-Pute street. The woman of the house refused us admission, pretending that the girls we were looking for were not in. Thereat I and my friend came near breaking in the door. At that a platoon of cross-bowmen, organized by Marcel to maintain order in the streets, happens to go by, and they arrest and lodge both of us at the Chatelet, despite our privileges as students of the Paris University!.. Now dare say that Marcel does not keep order in town!"

"That may all be," answered the man of the furred cap; "but any other councilman would have done as much; and Master John Maillart – "

"John Maillart!" exclaimed Rufin. "By the bowels of the Pope! Had he or any other, the King himself, dared to encroach upon the franchises of the University, the students, rising en masse, would have poured, arms in hands, out of their quarter of St. Germain and there would have been a battle in Paris. But what is allowed to Marcel, the idol of Paris, is not allowed to any other."

"The student is right!" went up from the crowd. "Marcel is our idol because he is just, because he protects the interests of the bourgeois against the court people, of the weak against the strong. Long live Etienne Marcel!"

"Without the activity of Marcel, his courage and his foresight, Paris would have been burned down and deluged in blood by the English."

"Did not Marcel also keep our town from starvation, when he went himself at the head of the militia as far as Corbeil to protect a cargo of grain that the Navarrais meant to pillage?"

"I don't deny that," calmly observed the man of the furred cap with envious insistence. "All I maintain is that, put in the place of Marcel, Maillart would have done as well."

"Surely, provided the councilman had the genius of Marcel. If he had, he surely would have done as well as Marcel!" rejoined the Tankard-smasher. "If my sweetheart wore a beard, she would be the lover and somebody else the sweetheart!"

This sally of the student was received with a universal laughter of approval. The immense majority of the Parisians entertained for Marcel as much attachment as admiration.

Wrapt in his somber silence, William Caillet had listened attentively to the altercation, and he saw confirmed that which Jocelyn the Champion had stated to him a short time ago at Nointel concerning the influence of Marcel upon the Parisian people. By that time, the roll of drums, the notes of the clarions and the din of a large multitude had drawn nearer. The procession turned into Mauconseil in order to cross St. Denis street. A company of the town's cross-bowmen, commanded by a captain, marched at the head and opened the way, preceded by the drummers and clarion blowers, who alternately struck up funeral bars. Behind the cross-bowmen came the town's heralds, dressed in the town colors, half red and half blue. From time to time the heralds recited solemnly the following mournful psalmody:

"Pray for the soul of Perrin Macé, a bourgeois of Paris, unjustly executed!

"John Baillet, the treasurer of the Regent, had borrowed in the name of the King a sum of money from Perrin Macé.

"Macé demanded his money in virtue of the new edict that orders the royal officers to pay for what they buy and return what they borrow for the King, under penalty of being brought to law by their creditors.

"John Baillet refused to pay, and furthermore insulted, threatened and struck Perrin Macé.

"In the exercise of his right of legitimate defence, granted him by the new edict, Perrin Macé returned blow for blow, killed John Baillet and betook himself to the church of St. Méry, a place of asylum, from where he demanded an inquest and trial.

"The Duke of Normandy, now Regent, immediately sent one of his courtiers, the marshal of Normandy, to the church of St. Méry, accompanied with an escort of soldiers and the executioner.

"The marshal of Normandy dragged Perrin Macé from the church, and without trial Macé's right hand was cut off and he was immediately hanged.

"Pray for the soul of Perrin Macé, a bourgeois of Paris, unjustly executed."

Regularly after these sentences, that were alternately recited by the heralds in a solemn voice, the muffled roll of drums and plaintive clarion notes resounded, but they hardly served to hush the imprecations from the crowd, indignant at the Regent and his court. Behind the heralds followed priests with their crucifixes and banners, and then, draped in a long black cloth embroidered in silver, came the coffin of the executed bourgeois, carried by twelve notables, clad in their long robes and wearing the two-colored hats of red and blue, such as were worn by almost all the partisans of the popular cause. The collars of their gowns were held by silver brooches, likewise enameled in red and blue, and bearing the inscription "To a happy issue," a device or rallying cry given by Marcel. Behind the coffin marched the councilmen of Paris with Etienne Marcel at their head. The obscure bourgeois, who had stepped out of his draper's shop to become one of the most illustrious citizens of Gaul, was then in the full maturity of his age. Of middle height and robust, Etienne Marcel somewhat stooped from his fatigues, seeing that his prodigious activity of a man of both thought and action left him no repose. His open, manly and characterful face bore at the chin a thick tuft of brown beard, leaving his cheeks and lips clean shaven. The feverish agitation of the man and the incessant cares of public affairs had furrowed his forehead and left their marks on his features without, however, in any way affecting the august serenity that an irreproachable conscience imparts to the physiognomy of an honorable man. There was nothing benigner or more affectionate than his smile when under the influence of the tender sentiments so familiar to his heart. There was nothing more imposing than his bearing, or more threatening than his looks when, as powerful an orator as he was a great citizen, Etienne Marcel thundered with the indignation of an honest and brave soul against the acts of cowardice and treason and the crimes of the feudal nobility and the despotic crown. The provost wore the red and blue head-gear together with the emblazoned brooch that distinguished the other councilmen. Among these, John Maillart often during the procession gave his arm to Marcel, who, fatigued by the long march through the streets of Paris, cordially accepted the support of one of his oldest friends. Since youth Marcel had lived in close intimacy with Maillart, but the latter, ever keeping concealed the enviousness that the glory of Marcel inspired him with, could not now wholly repress a bitter smile at the enthusiastic acclaim that saluted Marcel along the route.

A woman clad in long mourning robes and whose presence seemed out of place at such a ceremony marched beside Maillart. It was his wife, Petronille, still young and passing handsome, but of atrabilious and harsh mien. Each time that the heralds finished the mournful psalmody and before they began it anew, Petronille Maillart would break out into sobs and moans, and raising and wringing her arms in despair cried out: "Unhappy Perrin Macé! Vengeance upon his ashes! Vengeance!" The plaintive outcries and the contortions of Madam Maillart seemed, however, to excite more surprise than interest with the crowd.

"By Jupiter!" cried Rufin the Tankard-smasher, "what brings that bellowing woman to this funeral? What makes her demean herself like that, as if she were possessed? She is neither the widow nor any relative of Perrin Macé."

"For that reason her presence is all the more admirable," observed the man of the furred cap addressing the crowd. "Behold her, friends! Do you see how her despair testifies the extent to which she, as well as her husband, share in the terrible fate of poor Perrin Macé?.. You are witnesses, friends, that Dame Petronille is the only councilman's wife who assists at the ceremony!"

"That's true!" said several voices. "Poor, dear woman! She must feel sadly distracted."

"Yes, indeed. And surely that is not the case with the wife of Marcel, our first magistrate. She and the others remain calmly at home, without at all concerning themselves about this public sorrow," put in the man of the furred cap. "Fail not to take notice!"

"By the bowels of the Pope!" cried the Tankard-smasher. "Marcel's wife acts like a sensible body. She is right not to come out and exhibit herself and utter shrieks fit to deafen Beelzebub just when the drums are silent… The affliction of that bellowing woman looks to me like a sheet of music, marked on time. That woman is playing a comedy."

"You vainly try to pass the matter off as a joke, master student," rejoined the man of the furred cap. "It will, nevertheless, be noted that the wife of Maillart assisted at the funeral of Perrin Macé, and that the wife of Marcel did not. Hm! Hm! My friends, that gives room for many suspicions; or, rather, it confirms certain rumors."

"What suspicions?" asked Rufin; "What rumors? Explain yourself."

But without answering the student the man of the furred cap was lost in the crowd, while continuing to whisper to those that he came in contact with. During this slight incident, the funeral procession had continued to file by. Notable townsmen, carrying funeral torches, marched behind the councilmen; they were followed by the trade guilds, each headed by its banner; finally the rear was brought up by a long line of people of all conditions uttering imprecations against the Regent and his court, and acclaiming Marcel with ever increasing enthusiasm. Marcel, the crowd declared, would know how to avenge the fresh and sanguinary court iniquity.

From mouth to mouth the announcement was carried that, after the ceremony, Marcel would address the people in the large hall of the Convent of the Cordeliers. William Caillet silently assisted at this scene which seemed to impress him deeply. After a few moments' reflections he overcame his rustic timidity and drew Rufin the Tankard-smasher aside by the arm just as the latter was about to walk away. The student turned around, and yielding to the joviality of his nature as well as purposing to haze the rustic after the time-honored practice of the University of Paris, said to him banteringly: "I wager, dear rustic, that you overheard me speaking of one of my sweethearts! Hein! I see through you, my sylvan swain! You would like to admire the town beauties. By the bowels of the Pope! You shall have your pick – "