The Poniard's Hilt; Or, Karadeucq and Ronan. A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres. Эжен Сю

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      "What! A hundred cloaks in the wardrobe, and only rags for the toiling slave?

      "Who was it planted the vine? Who harvested the grape and pressed it into wine? The slave! Who should drink the wine? The slave!

      "Who was it that tended and sheared the sheep and wove the cloth and made the cloak? The slave!

      "Who should wear the cloak? The slave!

      "Up, ye poor and oppressed! Up! Revolt! Here are your good friends the Vagres! They approach! Death to the seigneurs and the bishops!

      "Six men united are stronger than a hundred divided: Let us unite! Each for all, and all for each! 'The devil take the Franks! Long live the Vagrery and Old Gaul!' "

      Who sang this song? Ronan the Vagre. Where did he sing it? On a mountain path that led to the city of Clermont in Auvergne, that grand and beautiful Auvergne, land of magnificent traditions – Bituit, who gave Roman legions to his pack of hounds for breakfast in the morning; the Chief of the Hundred Valleys! Vindex! and so many other heroes of Gaul, were they not all sons of Auvergne? of the beautiful Auvergne, to-day the prey of Clotaire, the most odious, the most ferocious of the four sons of Clovis?

      Other voices answered in chorus to the song of Ronan the Vagre. They had met on a mild summer's night; there were about thirty Vagres gathered at the spot – gay customers, rough boys, clad in all styles, but armed to the teeth, and all carrying in their caps a twig of green oak as the emblem of their solidarity.

      They arrive at a place where the roads fork – one road leads to the right, another to the left. Ronan halts. A voice is heard – the voice of Wolf's-Tooth. What a Titan the man is! He is six feet high, with the neck of a bull and enormous hands; only the hoop of a barrel could encircle his waist:

      "Ronan, you said to us: 'Brothers, arm yourselves!' We armed ourselves. 'Furnish yourselves with torches of straw!' Here are the torches. 'Follow me!' We did. You halt; and we have halted."

      "Wolf's-Tooth, I am considering. Now, brothers, answer me. Which is to be preferred, the wife of a Frankish count or a bishopess?"

      "A bishopess smells of holy water – the bishop blesses; a count's wife smells of wine – the count, her husband, drinks himself drunk."

      "Wolf's-Tooth, it is exactly the contrary: the wily prelate drinks the wine, and leaves the water to the stupid Frank."

      "Ronan is right!"

      "To the devil with the holy water, and long live wine!"

      "Yes, long live the wine of Clermont, with which Luern, the great Auvergnan chief of former days, used to fill up the ditches wide as ponds, in order to refresh the warriors of his tribe."

      "That would have been a cup worthy of you, Wolf's-Tooth! But, brothers, do answer me; to whom shall we give the preference, to a bishopess or to a count's wife?"

      "To the bishopess! To the bishopess!"

      "No, to the count's wife!"

      "Brothers, so as to please all, we shall take both – "

      "Well said, Ronan!"

      "One of these roads leads to the burg of Count Neroweg, the other to the episcopal villa of Bishop Cautin."

      "We must carry off both the bishopess and the countess – we must pillage both burg and villa!"

      "With which shall we start? Shall we start with the prelate, or shall we start with the seigneur? The bishop spends more time over his cup; he loves to roll the sweet morsels over his tongue, and to taste the wine leisurely; the seigneur drinks larger quantities; he gulps them down like a toper – "

      "Ronan is right!"

      "Consequently, at this hour of the night, midnight, the hour of the Vagres, Count Neroweg must be full as a tick, and snoring in his bed; his wife or some concubine, lying beside him, must be dreaming with eyes wide open. Bishop Cautin, on the other hand, will be leaning with both his elbows on a table, and face to face with a bowl of old wine and one of his favorite boon companions, cracking jokes."

      "First to the count; he will be in bed."

      "Brothers, let us first call on the bishop; he will be found up; there is more sport in surprising a prelate at his wine than a seigneur at his snores."

      "Well said, Ronan! The bishop first!"

      "March! I know the house!"

      Who was it that said this? A young and handsome Vagre of about twenty-five years of age. He went by the name of "Master of the Hounds." There was no more accurate marksman than he with his bow and arrow. His arrow simply traveled as he wished. Once the forester slave of a Frankish duke, he was caught in an amour with one of the women of his seigneur's household, and escaped death by flight. He thereupon ran the Vagrery.

      "I know the episcopal house," repeated the daring fellow. "Feeling it in my bones that some day or other we would be holding communion with the bishop's treasury, like a good master of the hounds, I went one day and took observations around his lair. I saw the dear old man there. Never did I see a buck with blacker or more fiery eyes!"

      "And the house, Master of the Hounds, the house; how is it arranged?"

      "Bad! The windows are high; the doors heavy; the walls strong."

      "Master of the Hounds," replied Ronan the Vagre, "we shall reach the heart of the bishop's house without crossing either the door, the windows or the walls – on the same principle that you reach your sweetheart's heart without penetrating by her eyes – the night is favorable."

      "Brothers, to you the treasures – to me the handsome bishopess!"

      "Yours, Master of the Hounds, be the bishopess; ours, the booty of the episcopal villa! Long live the Vagrery!"

      CHAPTER II

      BISHOP AND COUNT

      In the summer season Bishop Cautin inhabited a villa situated not far from the city of Clermont, the seat of his episcopacy. Magnificent gardens, crystalline springs, thick arbors, green lawns, excellent meadows, gold harvests, purpled vines, forests well stocked with game, ponds well supplied with fish, excellently equipped stables – such were the surroundings of the holy man's palace. Two hundred ecclesiastical slaves, male and female, cultivated the church's "vineyard," without counting the domestic personnel – the cup-bearer, the cook and his assistants, the butcher, the baker, the superintendent of the bath, the shoemaker, the tailor, the turner, the carpenter, the mason, the master of the hounds, besides the washerwomen and the weavers, most of the latter young, often handsome female slaves. Every evening one of these girls took to Bishop Cautin, who lay softly tucked on a feather bed, a cup of warm and highly spiced wine. Early in the morning another girl took in a cup of creamy milk for the first breakfast of the pious man. And thus lived that good apostle of humility, chastity and poverty!

      And who is that portly, handsome and still young woman, who resembles Diana the huntress? With her bare neck and arms, clad in a simple linen tunic and her long black hair half undone, she leans on her elbows over the balcony that crowns the terrace of the villa. At once burning and languishing, the eyes of this woman now rise towards the starry sky, now seem to peer through this mild summer's night, under shelter of which, with the stealthy step of wolves, the Vagres are wending their way towards the bishop's residence. The woman is Fulvia, Cautin's bishopess, whom СКАЧАТЬ