The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times

"Rely upon my experience and foresight. Louis the Lusty will presently return at the head of redoubtable forces. The death of this infamous Gaudry, just though it was, will unchain against our city the fury of the clericals. The bolts of excommunication will second the royal arms. We are bound to go down – not before the excommunication; people laugh at that – but under the blows of the soldiers of Louis the Lusty. Our bravest men will be killed in battle, banished or executed after the King's victory. Another bishop will be imposed upon the city of Laon. Our belfry will be torn down, our seal will be broken, our banner torn and our treasury pilfered. The episcopals, supported by the King, will take vengeance for their defeat. Torrents of blood will flow in the city. That's what's before us."

"Then all is lost!"

"Child," proceeded Fergan with a melancholy smile, "men are killed; the principle of freedom never, after it has once penetrated the popular heart. Will Louis the Lusty, the new bishop, the nobles, however cruel their vengeance may be, massacre all the inhabitants of Laon? No. They are bound to leave alive the larger part of the communiers, if for no other purpose than to have whom to levy taxes on. The mothers, sisters, wives, the children of those who will have died for liberty, will continue to live. Oh, no doubt, for a while, the terror will be intense; the recollection of the disasters, of the massacres, of the banishments, and of the executions that will have followed upon the struggle, will at first paralyze all thought of insurrection. But none of that will last."

"Accordingly, the new bishop and the nobles will redouble their audacity? Their oppression will become more frightful than before?"

"No, the new bishop, however insensate he may be, will never forget the terrible fate of Gaudry; the nobles will not forget the death of so many of their people, who fell under the blows of the people's justice. That valuable example will be useful to us. The first thirst for vengeance on the part of the episcopals, once slaked, they will ease the yoke out of fear for new revolts. Nor is that all. Those of us who will have survived the struggle, will gradually forget those evil days and recall the happy ones when the Commune, free, peaceful, flourishing, exempt from all crushing imposts, and wisely governed by a magistracy of its own choice, was the pride and bulwark of its inhabitants. Those who will have witnessed those happy days will speak of them to their children with enthusiasm. They will tell their little ones how one day the King and the bishop having leagued themselves against the Commune, the latter valiantly rose in arms, forced Louis the Lusty to flee, and exterminated the bishop and his episcopals. The glory of the triumph will cause the disaster of the subsequent defeat to be forgotten. The feeling will take hold of revenging the overthrow of the Commune by restoring it. By little and little the enthusiasm will gain ground, and, when the moment shall have come, the insurrection will break out anew. Just reprisals will once more be exercised against our enemies, and our franchises will be proclaimed again. Mayhaps that again that second step towards freedom is followed by a savage re-action. But the step will have been taken. Some franchises will continue in force. And thus, step by step, painfully, by dint of struggles, of courage, of perseverance, our descendants, alternately vanquishers and vanquished, halting at times after battle to tend their wounded and recover breath, but never retreating an inch, will in the course of time arrive at the goal of that laborious and bloody journey. Then will the radiant sun of the day of Gaul's enfranchisement rise in all its glory!"

"Oh, father," said Colombaik, overpowered with sorrow, "woe is us, if Victoria's prediction is not to be verified, according to her prophetic visions, but across heaps of ruins and torrents of blood!"

"Do you imagine freedom is gained without struggle? We are the vanquishers. Our cause is holy like justice, sacred like right. And yet, look around!" answered the quarryman, pointing his son to the dismal spectacle presented by Exchange square, encumbered with the dead and dying, and lighted by the glamor of the torches and the lingering gleams of the fire of the Cathedral. "Look around, what streams of blood, what heaps of ruins!"

"Oh, why this terrible fatality!" resumed Colombaik in tones almost of despair. "Why must the conquest of such legitimate rights cost so dear!"

"The insurrection of the communal bourgeois is but the symptom of an enfranchisement, universal, but still far away. That day of deliverance will arrive, but it will arrive only when all the oppressed in city and field will rise in a body against their masters. Yes, that great day will come … it may take centuries … but I shall at least have caught the glamour of its dawn … and I shall die happy!"

EPILOGUE

Two months after the victory of the Commune of Laon over its seigniorial suzerain, the Bishop of Laon, and its episcopals, Fergan the Quarryman died on the ramparts of the city, defending them against the troops of Louis the Lusty. The quarryman's apprehensions had been verified, fully and promptly.

The day after the victory the Mayor, Councilmen and several other leading citizens, convened to consider the dangers of the situation. An attack by Louis the Lusty was expected any moment, nor did any give themselves up to illusions concerning the issue. Left to fight the King single-handed, the citizens of Laon realized that they would be crushed. They decided to seek an ally. One of the most powerful seigneurs of Picardy, Thomas, seigneur of the castle of Marle, known for his bravery, as well as for his ferocity, in which he equalled Neroweg VI., was a personal enemy of the King. Shortly before, in 1108, he had leagued himself with Guy, seigneur of Rochefort, and several other knights, to prevent the King's being consecrated at Rheims. Despite the iniquitous character of Thomas de Marle, and against the advice of Fergan, the Commune of Laon, pressed by danger, made propositions to that seigneur, who was known to have a large force at his command, for an alliance against the King. Thomas de Marle, unwilling to affront the royal power, refused to declare war against the King, but consented, in consideration of a money payment, to receive on his lands all the communiers who stood in fear of the royal vengeance.

A considerable number of insurgents, foreseeing the consequences of a struggle with the King, accepted the offer of Thomas de Marle, and, carrying their valuables with them, left Laon with wife and children. Others, Fergan among them, preferred staying in the city and defending themselves against the King unto death. Although the number of the communiers was reduced by the migrations to the surrounding regions, nevertheless, generous and credulous, the remaining inhabitants of Laon had entered into the pacific overtures of the surviving episcopals, who were laboring under the demoralizing effect of their recent defeat. Soon, however, as the latter realized how greatly the ranks of the communiers were thinned by death, and, above all, by the migrations, they picked up courage. They ordered the serfs of the abbey to meet in the market-place on a given day, and, taking them in command, fell upon the communiers in their own houses. Whoever fell into their hands was put to the sword. Thus, civil war broke out afresh. The serfs pillaged and set on fire all the houses of the bourgeois that they succeeded in capturing. Fergan and Joan, Colombaik and Martine, together with the apprentices of the tanner, entrenched themselves in their house, which, happily fortified, enabled them to sustain victoriously more than one siege to which they were subjected.

During these internal disturbances that decimated still further the ranks of the remaining communiers, Louis the Lusty was busily engaged gathering his forces. Learning that Thomas de Marle was giving asylum on his domains to the inhabitants of Laon, the King first marched against him, ravaged his lands, besieged him in his fortress of Couchy, took him prisoner, and mulcted him with a heavy ransom. As to the people of Laon, found within the territory of Thomas de Marle, the King had them all sabred or hanged, and their bodies long served as pasture to the birds of prey. A rich butcher of Laon, Robert the Eater, was tied to the tail of a fiery horse, and died the frightful death of the Queen Brunhild, five hundred years before. Through with these bloody executions, Louis the Lusty marched upon Laon. The Mayor and Councilmen, faithful to their oaths of defending the Commune with their lives, ran to the ramparts, together with Fergan, Colombaik and several others of the citizens, to oppose the entrance of the King. At the last battle a large number of the communiers fell on the field, dead or wounded. Fergan was killed, Colombaik was wounded in two places. The defeat of the communiers was inevitable.

The King took the city and placed a new bishop in the seigniory. But here also the forecast of Fergan proved correct. Thanks to the remembrance of the insurrection and of the just reprisals of the insurgents, the exorbitant privileges of the bishop and noblemen were modified.

Colombaik was not allowed to taste these limited sweets of the heroic defence of Laon. Himself and others, among whom were the Mayor and the Councilmen, too deeply compromised in the insurrection, were banished from the place, and all their property confiscated. But young and full of life as well as of hope for the future and of pride at the past, though ruined, the quarryman's son settled down with his mother and wife, and resumed his trade as a tanner at Toulouse in Languedoc, where, thanks to the local advantages of industry and intelligence, commerce then flourished and, at that season, thought enjoyed freedom.

(The End.)

notes

1

A Gallic heroine of the second century.

2

A Norse chieftain who led a piratical invasion of France in the eighth century, and was pacified with the fief of Normandy where he and his followers in arms settled.

3

William, Archbishop of Tyre, reports this frightful address in his history of the Crusaders.

4

Baudry, Archbishop of Dole, says: "It was not imputed a crime to eat up the Saracens; it was considered to be a waging of war against them with the teeth."

5

Four-handed.