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!
206 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 hearth-stones, 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 land—what wonder was it that these miserable, trampled207 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, tortured, and slain, with all extremities of cruelty, before their208 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, and skill. and it came to be rumored far and near that there209 was one band, 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 to the “black rider,” as he was universally termed,210 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 sooner was he taken than he was hanged on the next tree if in211 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, irrevocable, speaking the miserable creature’s doom, so that212 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 even the angry passions of man, the great destroyer, seem to213 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 such was the truth: for the personages were raoul de canillac,214 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, signing it as a portion of his name, or an honorable title of distinction.
215 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 montfau?on, 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 small, gray, rustic chapel, supported on four clustered columns,216 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 infraction of the forest-laws; so much so, indeed, that the death217 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-atarms drew out from behind a spur of the hills at the entrance218 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. to those of gentle origin, however, no such clemency219 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 castle-moat, 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.
220 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 champrèst, 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!
