 | CHAPTER II. The knights of England, France, and Scotland |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
They were dark and dismal days in the fair land of France.
Foreign invasion was triumphant, domestic insurrection was
rife.
The terrible and fatal field of Poictiers, the field of the Black
Prince, had stricken down at a single stroke the might of a
great, a glorious nation; her king a captive in a foreign dungeon;
one third of the best and bravest nobles dead on the
field of honor, or languishing in English fetters; a weak and
nerveless regent on her throne; and Charles, the bad king of
Navarre, the counsellor, the nearest to his ear.
Half of the realm at least was held directly under English
sway, with garrisons of English archers in the towns, and the
red-cross banner of St. George floating above her vanquished
towers; and in the provinces, still nominally French, armies
of free companions sweeping the fields of their harvests far and
near, plundering the cottage, pillaging the castle, levying contributions
on open towns, storming by force strongholds — English,
Gascons, and Normans — led for the most part by men of
name and renown — bastards, in many cases, of great and noble
houses, such as the bourg de Maulion, and the bourg de Keranlouet,
and a hundred others of scarcely inferior fame — had
subjected the country scarcely less effectually than it had been
done elsewhere by open, honorable warfare.
To this appalling state of things a fresh horror was now
added, where horror was least needed — and that the most tremendous
of all horrors, a servile insurrection — the sudden, and
spontaneous, and victorious outbreak of ignorant, down-trodden,
vicious, cruel, frenzied, and brutal slaves!
The nobles themselves — who, had they been combined, and
acted promptly and in unison, could have crushed the life out
of the insurrection in a week — divided into hostile parties, dispirited
by the wonderful successes of the victorious English,
intimidated and crest-fallen — held themselves aloof the one
from the other; and, attempting to defend their isolated fortresses
singly, without either concert or system, allowed themselves
to be surprised in detail, and butchered upon their own hearthstones,
by the infuriated serfs.
All horrors, all atrocities that can be conceived, were perpetrated
by the victors, maddened by long years of servitude and
suffering, by deprivation of all the rights and decencies which
belong of nature to every living man, and by the enforcement
of droits so infamous and unnatural, that it is only wonderful
how men should have so long endured them! Not the least
galling of these was that feudal right which permitted the seigneur
to compel the virgin bride on her wedding-day to his own
bed, and then return her dishonored to the arms of her impassive
husband — a right which not merely existed in abeyance,
or, as in latter days, was compounded by a fine, but which was
an every-day occurrence, a usage of the land — to enforce which
was no more considered cruel or tyrannical than to collect rents,
or tithes, or any other feudal dues — and which was not finally
abolished until the reign of Louis XIV., when it was at length
suppressed in those memorable assizes, known as the grands
jours d' Auvergne, when many of the noblest of the land died
by the hands of the common executioner for tyranny and persecution.
When, therefore, crimes like these, and worse, were perpetrated
daily under the sanction and authority of feudal law;
when they had been endured for years — not, indeed, without
feelings of the direst bitterness and rage, but without loud complaint
or general resistance, by all the serfs and villeyns of the
wretches, scarcely human, save in form, from the squalid
wretchedness of their condition, and the studious care of their
oppressors to prevent their progress or improvement — what
wonder, I say, was it, that, seeing at length their opportunity,
when their lords were distracted by foreign conquests, by the
devastations of robber-bands, and by their own political dissensions
or social feuds, they should have sprung to arms everywhere
— their cry, “War to the castle, peace to the cottage!”
— seeking redress or revenge, and braving death willingly, as
less intolerable than the wrongs they had been so long enduring
in sullen desperation? What wonder was it, that, when
victorious, they, who never had been spared, should have shown
themselves unsparing; that they, whose hearths had been to
them no safeguards for any sanctity of domestic life, no asylums
for any age or sex, should have wreaked upon the dwellers of
the castles the wrongs which for ages had been the inheritance
of the inmates of the cottages; that they, whose wives and
daughters had never found protection from worse than brutish
violence in tender years, in innocence of unstained virtue, in
the weakness of imploring beauty, should have requited, on the
wives and daughters of their tyrants, pollution by pollution,
infamy, and death?
Such, such, alas! is human nature; and rare it is indeed that
suffering at the hands of man teaches man moderation to the
sufferers when it becomes his turn to suffer. Injustice hardens,
not melts, the heart; and we have it, from no less an authority
than the word of Him who can not lie, that “persecution maketh
wise men mad” — but, of a surety, the wretched serfs and Jacquerie
were far enough removed from wisdom, however they
might be deemed mad, nor were many of their actions very far
removed from madness. Knights crucified above the altars of
their own castle-chapels, while their wives were dishonored,
eyes; infants tossed upon pikes, or burnt alive, in the presence
of their frantic mothers; women compelled to eat the flesh of
their own husbands, roasted at their own kitchen-grates ere yet
life was extinct; the whole land filled with blood and ruin, and
the smoke of conflagration going up night and day to the indignant
and polluted heavens — these were the signs of those dark
and awful times, these were the first fruits of the conquered
liberty of the emancipated helots of the feudal system!
And when, nerved at length by the very extremity of peril,
the nobles took up arms to make common cause against the
common enemy, they found themselves isolated and hemmed in
on all sides, unable to draw together so as to make head against
the countless numbers of the enemy, which, like the waters of
an inundation, increased hourly, and waxed wider, deeper,
stronger, as it rolled onward. Large bodies could not be collected;
small bodies were cut off; till at length so completely
were the proud and warlike nobles of the most warlike land in
Europe cowed and disheartened by the triumph of their despised
and degraded slaves, that fifty men, armed cap-à-pie, and
mounted on their puissant destriers, who would, six months before,
have couched their lances confidently, and ridden scatheless
through thousands of the skinclad Jacquery — trampling
them at leisure under the hoofs of their barded horses, and, invulnerable
themselves, spearing them at their will from their
lofty demipiques — now felt their proud hearts tremble at the
mere blast of a peasant's horn, and fled ingloriously before an
equal number of undisciplined and half-armed serfs!
About the period, however, of which I write, several encounters
had taken place, especially in Touraine, in the Beauvoisis,
and the country about the Seine, between the chivalry and their
insurgent villeyns, in which the former had been worsted, not
so much by superior forces as by superior courage, discipline,
was one hand, and that the fiercest and most cruel of all — consisting
of above a thousand foot, spears, and crossbow-men, and
led by a powerful man-at-arms, before whose lance everything
was said to go down — at the head of nearly a hundred fully-equipped
lances, which was in no respect unequal to the best
arrays of the nobility with their feudal vassals.
What was at first mere rumor, soon came to be accredited —
soon came to be undoubted truth; for, emboldened by their successes
from attacking the parties of chivalry in detail, as they
fell upon them traversing the country in the vain hope of combinations,
this great band now began to sit down before strong
towns and fortified holds, to besiege them in due form of war,
and were in every instance successful.
Their numbers, too, increased with their success, for every
knight or man-at-arms who fell, or was taken prisoner, mounted
and armed a peasant; and it was singular to observe with what
skill and judgment the leader apportioned his best spoils to his
best men: so that, developing his resources slowly — never
admitting any man to enter his cavalry who had not approved
himself a soldier, who could not ride well, and charge a lance
fearlessly, nor enrolling any one among his footmen who was
not well armed with a corslet or shirt-of-mail, and steel cap or
sallet, with sword, dagger, and pike, or crossbow — he was soon
at the head of two thousand excellent foot, and above three
hundred lances, admirably mounted, who fought under his own
immediate orders.
Who he was, no one knew, or conjectured. It was reported
that his own men were unacquainted with his name, and that
his face, when the vizor of his helmet was raised, was covered
by a sable mask. How much of truth or falsehood there might
be in these vague rumors, no man seemed to know; but it is
certain that a mysterious and almost supernatural terror attached
whenever he was spoken of — a terror which perhaps he took
a secret pleasure in augmenting, either from motives of policy
or of pride.
The strong suit of knight's armor which he wore, of the best
Milan steel, was black as night from the crest to the spur, without
relief of any kind, or device on the shield, or heraldric crest
on the burgonet. The plume which he wore on his casque was
similar to those affixed in modern days to hearses; and another,
its counterpart, towered between the ears of his charger, which
was a coal-black barb, without one white hair in its glossy hide,
barded with chamfront, poitrel, neck-plates, and bard proper,
all of black steel, with funeral-housings of black cloth.
Such was the man who alone of the leaders of the Jacquerie
seemed to make war on a system, acting according to the dictates
of the soundest judgment rather than, like the others, by
wantonness or whim; permitting no license, nor promiscuous
individual pillaging, but causing all plunder to be brought together
for the common weal — thus making war support war,
according to the prescribed plan of the greatest of modern conquerors
— and subsisting his men on the spoils of the powerful
and rich, without trespassing in any wise on the property of
the poor, whose favor it was his object to conciliate.
It came, too, to be understood, ere long, that his cruelty was
no less systematic than his plundering. No wanton barbarity,
no torturing, roast, crucifying, or the like, was ever perpetrated
by his band; and of himself, it was notorious that, except in
open warfare or in the heat of battle, he had never dealt a blow
against a man, or laid a rude hand on a woman, of the hated
caste of nobles. Still, neither man nor woman ever escaped
his rancorous and premeditated vengeance.
Every male noble, of whatever age — gray-haired, or full-grown
man, stripling, or child, or infant in the cradle — no
the open field, or from the pinnacles of his own castle if within
stone walls.
Every female of noble birth — and to these, though he never
looked on them himself, nor was tempted by the charms of the
fairest — was delivered at once to the mercies of his men, subjected
to the last dishonor; and then, when life was intolerable
to them, and death welcome, they were drowned in the nearest
stream or lake, if in the open country, or cast from the battlements
into the moat, if captured within the precincts of a fortalice.
So rigidly did he adhere to this last mode of execution, often
carrying his victims along with the band for several days until
he could find a suitable place for drowning them, that it was
soon determined that he must have some secret motive, or strong
vow, binding him to this strange course — the rather that there
were many reasons for believing him to be a man naturally of a
feeling and generous temper, hardened by circumstances into
this vein of cold and adamantine cruelty.
Though he had never been known to relent, tears had been
known to fall fast through the bars of his avantaille, as he repulsed
the outstretched arms and rejected the passionate entreaties
of some lovely, innocent maiden, imploring death itself
as a boon, so she might save her honor.
At such times, it was affirmed — and they were of no unusual
occurrence — when he seemed on the point of relenting, he
needed only to clasp in his mailed fingers a long, heavy tress
of female hair — once of the loveliest shade of dark brown,
verging almost upon black, but now bleached by exposure to
the summer sun and the wintry storm — which he wore among
the black plumes of his casque, when he became on the instant
cold, iron, and impenetrable, as the proof-harness which he
wore; and the words would come from his lips slow, stern,
even she would plead no longer! —
“Away with her! away! For she, too, was beautiful, and
innocent, and good; and which of these availed her, that she
should not perish? Away with her, I say, and do your will
with her; but let me not look on her any more!”
Up to this time, the insurrection had been confined to the
northeast of France, and more especially to the Beauvoisis
and the regions adjacent to the capital, the armed commons of
which appeared ready to encourage and assist, if not openly to
join them; but, at the period when my tale commences, it began
to spread like a conflagration, and rapidly extended itself in all
directions.
Auvergne still continued, however, free from disturbance, and
the knights and nobles whose demesnes lay within that fair
province went about their ordinary avocations and amusements,
unmolested and unsuspicious of danger, without any more display
of military force than was usual in those dark and dangerous
times, and with no more than ordinary trains of feudal dependants
and retainers.
This, however, was now brought to a sudden and alarming
conclusion by the occurrence of an incident so terrible and hideous
in its character, that it struck a panic-terror into every heart
that heard tell of it, and that it still survives, though centuries
have elapsed, as clear and distinct as if it had but just occurred,
in the memories of the peasantry of Auvergne.
It was a beautiful morning in the latter part of June, when
the whole face of the country was overspread by a garb of the
richest summer greenery, when the skies were glowing with
perfect and cloudless azure, and when the atmosphere was perfumed
with the breath of flowers and vocal with the melody of
birds. It was a morning when all nature seemed to be at peace,
the bridal, as are old pock-words of the earth and sky — when
be at rest, and when it is difficult to believe in the existence
or commission of any violence or wrong.
It was on such a morning that a gay cavalcade of knights
and ladies issued from the gates of the castle of Roche d'or,
with a numerous train of half-armed retainers; with grooms,
and foresters, and falconers; with hounds, gazehounds, and
spaniels, fretting in their leashes; and goss-hawks, jer-falcons,
peregrines, and marlins, horded upon their wrists, or cast upon
frames suspended by thongs about the waists of the varlets who
carried them.
At the head of this gallant company rode a finely-formed man
of stately presence, and apparelled in the rich garments of a
person of distinction in an age when every station and rank of
life had its distinctive garb, and when the sumptuary laws were
enforced with much strictness, rendering it highly penal for one
class to assume the dress of the station next above it. Velvet,
and rich furs, and ostrich-plumes, rustled and waved in the
garb of this puissant noble, and many a gem of rare price flashed
from the hilts of his weapons, and even from the accoutrements
of his splendid Andalusian charger. On either hand of him
rode a lady, beautiful both of them, and young, but in styles of
beauty utterly dissimilar: for one was dark-browed and black-haired,
with the complexion of a clear-skinned brunette, suffused
with a rich, sunny color, and large, languid black eyes; while
the other had a skin as white as snow, with the slightest possible
tinge of rose on the soft, rounded cheeks — eyes of the
hues of the dewy violet — and long, streaming tresses of warm,
golden brown.
In the dark-haired lady it was easy to trace a resemblance,
of both outline and complexion, to the gentleman who rode between
them, and it would not have needed a very keen observer
to discover at a glance that they were brother and sister. And
the marquis of Roche d'or; Louise de Canillac, his lovely sister;
and Clemente, his late-wedded wife, formerly Clemente
Isaure de Saint Angely, who was the wonder of the country
for beauty, and its idol for her charity and goodness.
Next this lady, on the outer side, there rode one who was as
much and as deservedly detested by the neighborhood as she
was admired and beloved — a strange compound of all the foul
and hideous vices which can render humanity detestable, unredeemed
by one solitary virtue, if bravery be excepted, which
was a quality so general and necessary — being, in fact, almost
unavoidable, from the peculiar nature of chivalrous institutions
— that it must be regarded rather as a virtue of the age and
military caste of nobles, than of this or that individual. He had
earned himself a fearful reputation, and how well he had deserved
no one could doubt who looked upon his face, all scathed
and furrowed by the lines stamped on it by habitual indulgence
in every hateful vice, habitual surrender to every fiery passion.
A cousin of the marquis, and his nearest male relative, he had
done much to deprave and corrupt his mind; and though an
accomplished and gallant gentleman, honorable, and affable, and
companionable to his own caste, a fond husband, a kind brother,
and a warm friend, he had succeeded in rendering him as cruel
and unmerciful an oppressor of all beneath him as a feudal
seigneur in those days could be, if his power was equalled by
his will to do evil. He also was Canillac, the reproach and
disgrace of an old and noble name, and was known far and wide,
for his furious and frantic crimes — which seemed, so perfectly
unprovoked were they at times and devoid of meaning, to arise
from actual insanity — by the soubriquet of Canillac le fou, the
madman — a title of which, so shameless was he in his infamous
renown, he actually appeared to glory, singing it as a portion
of his name, or an honorable title of distinction.
On the other side, next to Louise de Roche d'or, rode a tall
and handsome youth, wearing the belt and spurs of knighthood,
and gazing at times into the face of the beautiful girl with
eyes full of deep, ardent affection, and speaking to her in those
low, earnest tones which denote so certainly the existence of
strong and pervading interest and affection. The knight, already
famous far beyond his years, for deeds of dauntless daring,
was Sir Louis de Montfauçon, a puissant baron of Auvergne,
whose bands marched with those of Castel de Roche d'or, and
the affianced husband of the young and fair Louise. Pages and
equerries, with the usual attendants, followed, and the courtyard
rang and re-echoed with the clang of hoofs, the neighing of
coursers, the deep baying of the bloodhounds, and the screams
of the frightened falcons.
They issued from the castle-gates; wound through the open
park, and the dense woodland chase beyond it; swept down a
steep descent into a broad and fertile valley, watered by a great,
clear river, which they crossed by a wooden bridge; traversed
the narrow, sandy street of the village of Castel de Roche d'or,
and, turning off short to the right, entered a little dell, through
which a bright, clear rivulet murmured over its pebbly bed, on
its way to join the larger river in the valley.
The lower part of this little dell was principally open pasturage,
dotted here and there with brakes and solitary bushes of
hawthorn; and along the margin of the rivulet there ran a fringe
of willow and alder thickets, but a little higher up it degenerated
into a mere gorge or ravine, thickly overshadowed by the
gnarled arms and dense, verduous umbrage of huge, immemorial
oaks, the outskirts and advanced guard, as it were, of a vast
oak-forest, which covered leagues on leagues of rough and
broken country, to which this dell formed the readiest means
of access.
Just in the jaws of this pass, overhung by the oaks, stood a
with groined arches intersecting each other resting upon them,
a small, arched canopy containing a bell on the summit of its
steep, slated roof, and a low-browed door, with a round arch,
decorated with the wolf-toothed carvings of the earliest Norman
style. Immediately in front of the door, the little rivulet which
watered the dell burst out of the other in a strong, gushing
spring, which had been blessed by some saint of old, and, being
surmounted by a vaulted canopy, was held to be peculiarly holy
by the superstitious rustics of the region.
This lovely spot, however, peaceful as it showed, and calm in
its tranquil and sequestered security, had been the scene, some
two or three years before, of a fearful and cruel crime: had
witnessed the violent seizure of a sweet, innocent, and rarely
lovely bride, fresh from the marriage benediction, by this very
Raoul de Canillac; and the girl had escaped pollution only by
self-immolation.
It was a cursed deed — and cursed was the vengeance it
provoked!
Just as the company I have described wheeled into the lower
end of the little dell, conversing joyously together, and enjoying
the sweet influences of the season and the place, they were
saluted by the long, keen blast of a bugle, well and clearly winded,
in that peculiarly note known at that period as the mort,
being the call that announced the death of the game, whatever
it was, which might be the object of pursuit.
This call came from the oaks above the chapel, although no
performer was seen, nor was there any baying of hounds or
clamor of hunters, such as usually accompanies the termination
of a chase.
There was no privilege at that time more highly regarded by
the nobles than the rights of the chase, nor was there any crime
more jealously pursued and punished more vindictively than the
of a stag or wild-boar by unlicensed hands was visited with a
far deeper meed of vengeance than the murder of a man!
It was with a face, therefore, inflamed by the fiercest ire, a
flashing eye, and a knitted brow, that Raoul de Canillac unsheathed
his sword, and spurred his horse into a gallop, calling
upon his men with a vehement and angry oath to follow him,
for there were of a surety villeyns in the wood slaughtering the
deer.
The ladies of the party checked their horses on the instant
in affright, while the men rushed forward in confusion, drawing
their weapons, and casting loose the hounds and hawks which
they had led or carried, in order to wield their arms with more
advantage; and between the shouts of the feudal retainers, the
deep baying of the released bloodhounds, and the wild screams
of the hawks, all that calm and peaceful solitude was transformed
on the instant into a scene of the wildest turmoil and
confusion. At this moment, just as the lord of Roche d'or
spurred his horse up the slight eminence toward the little
church, a man of great height and powerful frame stepped
slowly forward from among the oaks, clad in a full suit of
knightly armor, of plain, unornamented black steel, with no device
or bearing on his shield, and no crest on his casque, which
was overshadowed by an immense plume of black ostrich-feathers.
He had a two-handed sword slung across his shoulders,
and carried a ponderous battle-axe in his right hand.
Startled by this unexpected apparition, Raoul de Canillac
checked his horse suddenly, exclaiming: “Treason! fy! treason!
Ride, ladies, for your lives! — ride! ride!”
But this warning came too late: for, simultaneously with the
appearance of the leader, above five hundred crossbow-men and
lancers poured out from the wood on either flank, with their
weapons ready; and a body of fifty or sixty mounted men-at-arms
of the gorge, and effectually cut off their retreat. Entirely surrounded,
escape was impossible, and resistance hopeless, so
great was the numerical superiority of the enemy, and so perfectly
were they armed and accoutred for offence and defence,
while the retainers of the lords had no defensive arms whatever,
nor any weapons except their swords and hunting-staves,
and a few bows and arbalasts.
The leader of the Jacquerie — for it needed not a second
glance to inform Raoul de Canillac into whose hands he had
fallen — waved his axe on high as a signal, and instantly a single
crossbow was discharged; and the bolt, striking the horse
of the seigneur full in the centre of the chest, he went down on
the instant: and before he could recover his feet, the marquis
was seized by a dozen stout hands, and bound securely hand
and foot with stout hempen cords.
On perceiving this, the elder nobleman, Canillac the madman,
with the desperate and reckless fury for which he was so
conspicuous, dashed forward, sword in hand, with his paternal
war-cry, followed by a dozen or two of the armed servitors, as
if to rescue his kinsman. Perhaps he perceived the hopelessness
of their condition, and preferred selling his life dearly to
surrendering only to be slaughtered in cold blood: and if such
was his notion, he was not all unwise.
Again the battle-axe was waved, and this time a close and
well-aimed volley followed, the bolts taking effect fatally on the
bodies of the old lord and several of his followers, three of
whom with their chief were slain outright, while several others
staggered back more or less severely wounded.
With this, all resistance ended, the men throwing down their
arms, and crying for quarter, which — as they were all, with
the exception of two pages and an esquire, men of low birth —
was granted, and they were discharged without further condition.
was extended. The pages and esquire were stripped of their
costly garb, and immediately hanged up by the necks from the
oak-trees, together with the young knight affianced to Mademoiselle
Roche d'or, in spite of the entreaties and supplications
of his beautiful betrothed.
The ladies were then compelled to dismount, and their arms
being bound behind their backs, were tied with ropes to the
tails of their captors' horses; and, together with Raoul de Canillac,
whose feet were now released from their fetters, were
dragged in painful and disgraceful procession back to the gates
of the feudal fortalice from which they had so lately issued free
and happy!
On the first summons of the leader of the Jacques — seeing
their lord and the ladies captive, weak in numbers, dispirited,
and without a leader — the garrison immediately surrendered:
the portcullis was drawn up, the pontlevis lowered, and, with
their wretched prisoners, the fierce marauders entered the walls,
which, by their massive strength, might otherwise have long
defied them.
Meantime, not one word had been uttered by the leader of
the party, who indicated his demands to his men merely by the
wafture of his hand or the gesture of his head, which were
promptly understood and implicitly obeyed. In compliance
with a sign, the prisoners were now led after him into their
own magnificent abode, and carried through long, winding passages,
and up an almost interminable stairway, to an apartment
in the summit of a huge, square tower, overlooking the castlemoat,
from a battlemented balcony, at the height of above a
hundred feet. A dread foreboding shook the breast of Raoul
de Canillac, as he was brought into that chamber, the scene of
his outrageous cruelty to the lovely Marguerite in past years,
and now to be the scene of its as cruel retribution.
The black warrior raised the vizor of his helmet, and gazed
into the face of his former lord with the fixed, resolute, determined
scowl of Maurice Champrest, while the bad, bold oppressor
shook before his captor with a visible, convulsive air.
“Ay! tremble, murderer and tyrant — tremble!” thundered
the fierce avenger; “tremble! for thy time is at hand: and,
Marguerite — lovely and beloved Marguerite — right royally
shalt thou be now avenged! Away with these! away with
them! their doom is spoken!”
And a scene of more than fiendish cruelty and violence ensued.
Those innocent and lovely women, subjected to the last
dishonor before the eyes of the husband and brother — tortured
with merciless ingenuity when their violators were satiate of
their beauties — and then cast headlong from the bartizan into
the moat which had received the corpse of the Vassal's Wife!
Raoul de Canillac, scourged till the flesh was literally torn from
his bones, was plunged headlong after them!
Such was the Vassal's Vengeance! — and when he fell,
shortly afterward, before the walls of Meaux, by the lance of
the renowned Captal de Buch, his last words were: “I care
not — I care not to live longer. My task was ended, my race
won, when thou wert avenged, Marguerite — Marguerite!” and
he perished with her name on his tongue. His crimes were
great, but was not his temptation greater? Pray we, that we
be not tempted!
| CHAPTER II. The knights of England, France, and Scotland | |