The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code Part 20

CHAPTER VII.

EZ-LIBR.

It was close on midnight. The moon, now on the wane, had just risen in a cloudless sky. Hardly had the silvery crescent lifted itself above the horizon when the parish bells, spread over an area of about ten square leagues round about the burg of Plouernel sounded the tocsin at their loudest. At the signal, a troop of peasants armed with hatchets, hay-forks, scythes and old halberds, and preceded by a sort of vanguard consisting of fifty men armed with muskets, sallied out of the burg of Plouernel. They followed in silence the long avenue that led to the iron gate of the court of honor before the castle. At the head of this vanguard marched Gildas Lebrenn, the leasehold peasant of Karnak, Madok the miller, three leasehold peasants of the domain of Plouernel itself, and Tankeru. Tankeru carried, flung over his shoulder, his heavy blacksmith's hammer into the head of which he had cut the Breton words: EZ-LIBR--To Be Free. His arms were bare; in the pocket of his leathern ap.r.o.n was a roll of paper partly visible above the edge. The light of the moon illumined Tankeru's face. In two nights the st.u.r.dy man's hair had turned grey. His features were hardly recognizable since Tina's death. Despair had left its stamp upon them. He stopped at about a hundred paces from the iron gate of the castle, and said to Madok in a hollow voice:

"We swore to Salaun Lebrenn that we would follow his advice and place justice on our side before coming to blows, and to submit the Peasant Code for the approval of the Seigneur Count. Perhaps he has already hanged Salaun; but, dead or alive, Salaun has our word. We shall keep it! Tell our men to stop at the avenue. We shall enter the castle unarmed."

The order was given and executed. The vanguard, together with the troop of armed va.s.sals, halted under the trees of the avenue. Tankeru and his five companions advanced to the iron gate, which closed the entrance to the court of honor and stood between two pavilions, where the gateman or porter was housed. The vestibule and all the windows on the first floor of the castle could be seen brilliantly illuminated. Tankeru drew near the gate and called:

"Halloa! Porter! Porter! Come out!"

The porter, clad in a rich livery, came out of one of the pavilions, and approaching Tankeru, inquired:

"Who goes there? What do you want?"

"We want to speak with your master, and on the spot. Open the gate of the castle."

"You, clown?" answered the porter, with the insolence of a lackey, as he spied through the iron bars the blacksmith and his companions, all of whom were poorly clad. "Go your ways! Go, barefooted rabble! If you don't, I shall take my cane and come out--and then, look to your backs!"

"If you do not open, I shall force the gate!" cried Tankeru to the porter, who started to return to his pavilion grumbling.

Tankeru seized his hammer in both his hands, swung it, and with one blow snapped the lock of the gate. It flew open. The frightened porter ran towards the winding staircase of the castle, shouting:

"Help!"

The six va.s.sals entered the court of honor, and walked across it at a rapid pace. Suddenly Tankeru stopped. His eyes had caught sight of three gibbets, recently reared, as shown by the fresh earth that was thrown up at their feet. He called Gildas's attention to the instruments of death, and said:

"We arrive on time! The gibbets are intended for Salaun, his friend Serdan, and--"

The blacksmith did not mention the name of Nominoe. His features contracted and a.s.sumed a frightful expression. The robust man smothered a sob, clenched with convulsive rage the handle of his heavy hammer, and pursued his march a few stops ahead of his companions.

The frightened gateman rushed into the vestibule of the castle where a large number of other lackeys were playing cards. Among the gamesters was Sergeant La Montagne and his corporal. The soldiers of his detachment, tired out with their recent tramp, were resting in one of the adjoining out-buildings.

"A number of va.s.sals have forced open the gate!" shouted the porter as he tumbled in. "They demand to see monseigneur immediately! Go and tell the Count, and ask his orders!"

One of the lackeys ran off to carry the news to his master. The Count was at that moment discussing with his bailiffs, Abbot Boujaron and the Marchioness of Tremblay the sentence that was to be p.r.o.nounced upon the three "murderers" early next morning. At first stupefied at the audacity of his va.s.sals, the Count bounded up with indignation, and left the hall, followed by his bailiffs and Abbot Boujaron. As the Abbot crossed the vestibule he perceived Sergeant La Montagne, stepped towards him, and gave him a few hurried instructions in a low voice. The sergeant forthwith called to him his corporal, and both left the antechamber by an inside staircase. With his arm in a sling, followed by his bailiffs, and surrounded by a bevy of gallooned lackeys carrying torches in their hands, the Count of Plouernel presented himself upon the stairway of the castle at the moment when Tankeru was ascending the lower steps. The blacksmith and his friends had reached the middle of the stairs when the Abbot said in an undertone to the young Count of Plouernel:

"Gain time--a quarter of an hour, or if but ten minutes. The sergeant has gone out to wake up the soldiers and arm them, together with the forester guards. We shall bag the whole pack."

The Count of Plouernel nodded with his head approvingly to the Abbot, and addressed his va.s.sals in an angry tone:

"Wretches, who forced the gate of my court! What do you want? What do you come for?"

"You shall know in a minute, monseigneur," answered Tankeru in a firm voice as he drew the scroll of paper from the pocket of his leathern ap.r.o.n. While so doing, he ascended the steps that separated him from the landing where the Count of Plouernel stood, and handed him the writing: "Read this, if you please, monseigneur."

"What is this silly paper that you hand me, rustic?"

"It is the PEASANT CODE, monseigneur. Our code, the code of the poor, of the rustics, as you call us, Count of Plouernel."

"In other words, ye clowns, you presume to discuss!"

"Monseigneur," replied Tankeru, "we here are six honorable men who are delegated by your va.s.sals of Mezlean and Plouernel. In that writing, which contains the Peasant Code, we humbly present our grievances, and we endeavor to lay down, as clearly as is in our power, the rules that it may please you to observe towards us, monseigneur, from this day on.

It is in great humbleness that we present our code to you, monseigneur."

"A code! Rules dictated by this rustic rabble!" stammered the Count of Plouernel, beside himself with rage. "The audacity! Is it insolence, carried to a climax? Is it folly? Or are these clowns simply drunk? Go back, rustics! Back to your work!"

"Humor the miscreants," whispered the Abbot to the Count; "entertain them, gain time; the soldiers and the foresters must be here soon--we must bag the whole pack."

"Indeed, my clowns. You present your grievances?" proceeded the Count of Plouernel, thus admonished, with supreme disdain not unmixed with stupefaction. "So you have drawn up rules that it may please me to observe towards you! The grievances of this plebs must be droll to read!"

"We have taken the liberty, monseigneur, to submit our grievances to you. We are at the end of our endurance; this must change! In short, we demand of you no longer to be treated worse than draft animals; we demand of you, monseigneur, no longer to be driven with sticks applied to our backs; we demand of you, monseigneur, no longer to be overwhelmed with taxes imposed at your _good pleasure_; we demand of you, monseigneur, no longer to be thrown into prison, whipped with switches, sent to the galleys, or hanged if we kill your stags, or your boars, when they enter our fields and ravage our crops; finally, we demand of you--but read the paper, monseigneur, and you will see that all we ask is Justice--read the Peasant Code! Accept it; it will not ruin you--far from it! But then at least, we and our families would no longer die of hunger, neither worse nor better than foundered horses! We shall still continue to work for you from dawn to dusk, monseigneur, you will still have the larger share, we the smaller;--but then you would allow us to live as the creatures of the good G.o.d should live! Accept the Peasant Code, monseigneur; sign it; be, then, faithful to your signature, and we will be faithful to our agreement--it will mean peace--a good peace for you and for our families."

"Ho! Ho!" broke in the Count of Plouernel, whom the audacity of his va.s.sals threw into all manner of wrathful transports. "So, then, if I accept your code, we shall have peace? Whence it follows that, in case I refuse--please complete your sentence!"

"'Sdeath! It will then be war, monseigneur! And, take notice, it will then be your fault, not ours," answered Tankeru resolutely. "Finally, in order to cancel the whole bill, we demand of you that it may please you to set free three prisoners whom you are holding in the castle. You intend to have them hanged. Well, monseigneur, you must deliver them to us, if you please; they must be set free--without further delay. If not--"

"If not?" cried the Count of Plouernel at the end of his patience. "If I refuse to set the prisoners free, what will you do? Please answer, miserable fellow! What will you do? I would like to know!"

"'Sdeath! Monseigneur, we shall set them free ourselves! We shall open the war. It will be you who will have made the choice!"

"This is too much!" cried the Count of Plouernel. But suddenly breaking off and listening to windward, he turned to the Abbot and asked: "Is not that the ringing of the tocsin that I hear from afar?"

"Yes, monseigneur," observed Tankeru in a hollow voice that now waxed threatening. "With the rise of the moon, the tocsin was rung in all the parishes of your seigniories of Plouernel and Mezlean--it is now ringing at Rennes--at Nantes--at Quimper, where the fight is on. Everywhere the revolt is on--war everywhere--in case our seigneurs refuse to accept the Peasant Code. Decide on the spot!"

And pointing with his hand in the direction of the avenue to the castle, where the troop of armed va.s.sals was a.s.sembled, the blacksmith added:

"All the people of Plouernel and other parishes are yonder under arms; they are waiting for your answer, monseigneur! It will be peace, if you sign the Peasant Code and deliver us the prisoners; if not--fire and flames!--it will be war! War without mercy towards you, as you have been towards us, merciless and pitiless."

"Sergeant! Kill these rebels with your bayonets, or the brigands down the avenue will hear the fire of your muskets and run to their help!"

suddenly ordered the Count of Plouernel addressing Sergeant La Montagne, who, at the head of his men and hidden in the dark, had noiselessly crept along the facade of the castle. "This way, foresters!" added the Count in a ringing voice. "The castle is going to be attacked! Kill, kill the malignant rustic plebs--kill them all!"

"Run the clowns through! Let not one escape! Head and bowels! They tried to disarm us on the road to Mezlean!" cried Sergeant La Montagne. "This is our revenge! p.r.i.c.k them through and through! Death to the rustics!"

At the word of command the soldiers suddenly rushed forth upon the staircase, charging Tankeru and his companions with their bayonets.

While the soldiers turned to obey the order to ma.s.sacre the va.s.sals upon the stairway of the castle, Nominoe was awaiting death in his cell, whither the forester guards of the Count had taken him. The bailiff of the seigniory, a.s.sisted by his registrar, had proceeded to interrogate the prisoner, who was charged with a murderous attempt, followed by wounds, upon the person of the very high, very powerful and very redoubtable seigneur, etc. Nominoe remained silent, declining to answer any of the bailiff's questions. The only words he uttered were to inquire about the condition of Mademoiselle Plouernel. Not considering it fit to impart the information to the prisoner, the officer of justice once more urged him to consider that his refusal to answer the charges against him was equivalent to a confession of guilt on his part, and that the crime, in which he was caught red-handed, was punishable with death. The prisoner was to appear early the next morning at the bar of the seigniorial tribunal, together with his two accomplices, guilty like himself of attempted murder, also followed by serious wounds upon the person of the very high, very powerful and very redoubtable seigneur, etc. The execution of the sentence was immediately to follow the judgment. The three gibbets were to be erected that same night. Nominoe persisted in his silence. Thereupon the bailiff and the registrar took their departure, and he was left alone.

"To die!" pondered Nominoe. "I am about to die. Or rather, I am about to be re-born yonder! Oh! I would greet that new life with a shout of joy, were it not for my sorrow at departing from this world at the very moment when there is about to break out the revolt of which my father is the soul, and which, under his direction, might have led to the overthrow of the royal power itself. This is what attaches me to life."

Absorbed in his meditations, Nominoe had not noticed that for a considerable s.p.a.ce of time the sound of a number of bells, though weakened by the distance, reached him through the air-hole of his cell.

Suddenly a tumultuous noise that drew nearer and nearer attracted his attention. With the noise of the tumult was speedily mingled the detonations of musketry fire, frequent and well sustained, and but irregularly answered. Little by little the musketry discharges ceased.

The turmoil seemed hushed. A long silence ensued--and, presently, a reddish glint of flames penetrated through the air-hole of the cell, reflected itself upon the opposite wall, and speedily threw the same into a flamboyant glare. It was the war upon the castles that broke out!

Peace to the huts, war to the palaces!