The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

"Why did you induce uncle to go to-night after mother? She is to stay all night at La Catelle's. Why do you not answer me? Why is your face so lowering? My God! What ails you? Brother, brother, do not look upon me with such eyes! I am trembling all over."

"Hena, I love you – I love you carnally!"

"I – do not comprehend – what – you say. I do not understand your words. You now frighten me. Your eyes are bloodshot."

"The kind of love you feel for that monk – that love I feel for you! I love you with a passionate desire."

"Hervé, you are out of your mind. You do not know what you say!"

"I must possess you!"

"Good God, am I also going crazy? Do my eyes – do my ears deceive me?"

"Hena – you are beautiful! Sister, I adore you – "

"Do not touch me! Mercy! Hervé, brother, you are demented! Recognize me – it is I – Hena – your own sister – it is I who am here before you – on my knees."

"Come, come into my arms!"

"Help! Help! Mother! Father!"

"Mother is far away – father also. We are alone – in the dark – and I have received absolution! You shall be mine, will ye nil ye!"

The monster, intent upon accomplishing his felony in obscurity, knocked down the lamp with his fist, threw himself upon Hena, and gripped her in his arms. The girl slipped away from him, reached the staircase that led to the lower floor, and bounded down. Hervé rushed after her, and seized her as she was about to clear the lowest steps. The distracted child called for help. Holding her with one hand, her brother tried to gag her with the other, lest her cries be heard by the neighbors. Suddenly the street door was thrown open, flooding the room with moonlight, and disclosing Bridget on the threshold. Thunderstruck, the mother perceived her daughter struggling in the arms of her brother, and still, though in a smothered voice, crying: "Help! Help!" The wretch, now rendered furious at the danger of his victim's escaping him, and dizzy with the vertigo of crime, did not at first recognize Bridget. He flung Hena behind him, and seizing a heavy iron coal-rake from the fireplace, was about to use it for a club, not even recoiling before murder in order to free himself from an importunate witness. Already the dangerous weapon was raised when, by the light of the moon, the incestuous lad discovered the features of his mother.

"Save yourself, mother," cried Hena between her sobs; "he is gone crazy; he will kill you. Only your timely help saved me from his violent assault."

"Infamous boy!" cried the mother. "That, then, was your purpose in removing me from the house. God willed that half way to La Catelle's I met her brother-in-law – "

"Be gone!" thundered back Hervé, a prey to uncontrollable delirium; and raising the iron coal-rake which he had lowered under the first impulse of surprise at the sight of his mother, he staggered towards Bridget yelling: "Be gone!"

"Matricide! Dare you raise that iron bar against me – your mother?"

"All my crimes are absolved in advance! Incest – parricide – all are absolved! Be gone, or I kill you!"

Hardly were these appalling words uttered, when the sound of numerous and rapidly approaching steps penetrated into the apartment through the door that Bridget had left open. Almost immediately a troop of patrolling archers, under the command of a sergeant-at-arms, and led by a man in a black frock with the cowl drawn over his head, halted and drew themselves up before the house of Christian. The Franc-Taupin had met them a short distance from the Exchange Bridge. A few words, exchanged among the soldiers, notified him of the errand they were on. Alarmed at what he overheard, he had quickly retraced his steps and followed them at a distance. The sergeant in command stepped in at the very moment that Hervé uttered the last menace to his mother.

"Does Christian Lebrenn dwell here?" asked the soldier. "Answer quickly."

Ready to sink distracted, Bridget was not at first able to articulate a word. Hena gathered strength to rise from the floor where Hervé had flung her, and ran to Bridget, into whose arms she threw herself. Hervé dropped at his feet the iron implement he had armed himself with, and remained motionless, savage of mien, his arms crossed over his breast. The man whose face was hidden by the cowl of his black frock – that man was John Lefevre, the disciple of Ignatius Loyola – whispered a few words in the ear of the sergeant. The latter again addressed Bridget, now in still more peremptory tones:

"Is this the dwelling of Christian Lebrenn, a typesetter by trade?"

"Yes," answered Bridget, and greatly alarmed by the visit of the soldiers, she added: "My husband is not at home. He will not be back until late."

"You are the wife of Christian Lebrenn?" resumed the sergeant, and pointing to Hena and then to Hervé: "That young girl and that young man are your children, are they not? By order of Monsieur John Morin, the Criminal Lieutenant, I am commissioned to arrest Christian Lebrenn, a printer, his wife, his son and his daughter as being charged with heresy, and to take them to a safe place."

"My husband is not at home!" cried Bridget, her first thought being to the safety of Christian, although herself stupefied with fear at the threatened arrest. That instant, and standing a few steps behind the archers, the Franc-Taupin, taller by a head than the armed troop before him, caught the eyes of Bridget. With a sign he warned her to keep silent. He then bent his long body in two, and vanished.

"Do you want to make us believe your husband is not at home?" resumed the sergeant. "We shall search the house." Then turning to his men: "Bind the hands of that young man, of the young girl and of the woman, and keep guard over the prisoners."

John Lefevre, his face still concealed under the cowl of his frock, could not be recognized by Bridget. He knew the inmates of the house, at whose hearth he had often sat as a friend. He motioned to the sergeant to follow him, and taking a lanthorn from the hand of one of the archers, mounted the stairs, entered the chamber of the married couple, and pointing with his finger to a cabinet in which Christian kept his valuables, said to him:

"The papers in question must be in there, in a little casket of black wood."

The key stood in the lock of the cabinet. The sergeant opened the two doors. From one of the shelves he took down a casket of considerable proportions.

"That is the one," said John Lefevre. "Give it to me. I shall place it in the hands of Monsieur the Criminal Lieutenant."

"That Christian must be hiding somewhere," remarked the sergeant, looking under the bed, and behind the curtains.

"It is almost certain," answered John Lefevre. "He rarely goes out at night. There is all the greater reason to expect to find him in at this hour, seeing he spent part of last night out of the house."

"Why did they not try to arrest him during the day at the printing office of Monsieur Estienne?" the sergeant inquired while keeping up his search. "He could not have been missed there."

"As to that, my friend, I shall say, in the first place, that, due to the untoward absence of Monsieur the Criminal Lieutenant, who was summoned early this morning to Cardinal Duprat's palace, our order of arrest could not be delivered until too late in the evening. In the second place, you know as well as I that the artisans of Monsieur Estienne are infected with heresy; they are armed; and might have attempted to resist the arrest of their companion. No doubt the archers would have prevailed in the end. But Christian might have made his escape during the struggle, whereas the chances were a thousand to one he could be taken by surprise at his house, in the dark, along with his family."

"And yet he still escapes us," observed the sergeant, after some fresh searches. Noticing the door of Hena's chamber, he entered and rummaged that room also, with no better results, and said: "Nothing in this direction either."

"Come, let us investigate the garret. Give me the lanthorn, and follow me. If he is not there either, then we must renounce his capture for to-night. Fortunately we got the woman and the children – besides this," added the Jesuit, tapping upon the casket under his arm. "We shall find Christian, sure enough."

Saying this, John Lefevre opened the panel leading to the nook where stood the ladder to the attic; he climbed it, followed by the sergeant, arrived in the garret which had served as refuge to the unknown, noticed the mattress, some crumbs of bread and the remains of some fruit, pens and an inkhorn on a stool, and, scattered over the floor, fragments of paper covered with a fine and close handwriting.

"Somebody was hiding here, and spent some time, too!" exclaimed the sergeant excitedly. "This mattress, these pens, indicate the presence of a stranger of studious habits;" and running to the dormer window that opened upon the river, he mused: "Can Christian have made his escape by this issue?"

While the archer renewed his search, vainly rummaging every nook and corner of the garret, John Lefevre carefully collected the bits of paper that were strewn over the floor, assorted them, and kneeling down beside the stool, on which he placed the lanthorn, examined the manuscript intently. Suddenly a tremor ran over his frame, and turning to the sergeant he said:

"There is every reason to believe that Christian Lebrenn is not in the house. I think I can guess the reason of his absence. Nevertheless, before quitting the place we must search the bedroom of his two sons. It is in the rear of the ground floor room. Let us hurry. Your expedition is not yet ended. We shall probably have to leave Paris to-night, and carry our investigation further."

"Leave Paris, reverend Father?"

"Yes, perhaps. But I shall first have to notify the Criminal Lieutenant. What a discovery! To be able at one blow to crush the nest of vipers! —ad majorem Dei gloriam!"[34 - To the greater glory of God.]

John Lefevre and the sergeant re-descended to the ground floor. After a few whispered words to the soldier, the Jesuit departed, carrying with him the casket in which the chronicles of the Lebrenn family were locked.

The chamber occupied by Hervé was ransacked as vainly as had been the other apartments of the house. During these operations Bridget had striven to allay the fright of her daughter. Hervé, somber and sullen, his hands bound like his mother's and sister's, remained oblivious to what was happening around him. Giving up the capture of Christian, the sergeant returned to his prisoners and announced to Bridget that he was to carry both her and her children away with him. The poor woman implored him to take pity on her daughter who was hardly able to keep her feet. The sergeant answered harshly, that if the young heretic was unable to walk she would be stripped and dragged naked over the streets. Finally, addressing his archers, he concluded:

"Three of you are to remain in this house. When Christian raps to be let in you will open the door, and seize his person."

Bridget could not repress a moan of anguish at hearing the order. Christian, she reflected, was fatedly bound to fall into the trap, as he would return home unsuspecting. The three archers locked themselves up on the ground floor. The others, led by their chief, left the house, and, taking Bridget and her two children with them, marched away to lead them to prison.

"For mercy's sake," said the unhappy mother to the sergeant, "untie my hands that I may give my daughter the support of my arm. She is so feeble that it will be impossible for her to follow us."

"That's unnecessary," answered the sergeant. "On the other side of the bridge you will be separated. You are not to go to the same prison as your daughter."

"Good God! Where do you mean to take her to?"

"To the Augustinian Convent. You are to go to the Chatelet. Come, move on, move quickly."