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

"May God hear you, Master Barbot! I would then embrace my father this very day, and the threatened famine would be at end," answered Cornelia without interrupting her work of stirring the mixture, into which Theresa Rennepont just emptied a bucketful of sulphur – on account of which Master Barbot called out to her:

"No more sulphur, my dear Theresa. The tar and oil must predominate in the infernal broth. The sulphur is thrown in only to improve the taste by pleasing the eye with the pretty bluish flame, that gambols on the surface of the incandescent fluid. Now, my little girls, turn the beam just a little to one side in order to remove the basin from the fire without cooling off the broth. We shall swing it back over the fire the instant the Catholics run to the assault – then we shall dish up the broth to them, hot and nice."

While these Rochelois women were thus engaged in preparing the censer, others rolled enormous blocks of stone – the debris of the bastion that was shattered by the enemy's cannonade – and placed them in such positions over the breach that a child's finger could hurl them down upon the assaulting column. Others rolled barrels of sand, which after having served for protection to the arquebusiers on the ramparts, were likewise to be rolled down the steep declivity which the enemy had to climb. Finally, a large number of women were busy preparing stretchers for the wounded. These women worked under the direction of Marcienne, Odelin's widow. Theresa and Cornelia, left for a moment at leisure from their work on the censer, came over to the widow, and were presently joined by Louis Rennepont and Antonicq.

"Mother," said Antonicq, tenderly addressing Marcienne, "when I left the house this morning at dawn you were asleep; I could not tell you good-bye – embrace me!"

Marcienne understood what her son meant. A murderous assault was about to be engaged. Perhaps they were not to meet again alive. She took Antonicq in her arms, and pressing him to her breast she said in a moved yet firm voice: "Blessings upon you, my son, who never caused me any grief! If, like your father, you should die in battle against the papists, you will have acted like an upright man to the very end. Should I succumb, you will carry with you my last blessing. And you also, Cornelia," added Marcienne, "I bless you, my child. I shall die happy in the knowledge that Antonicq found in you a heart worthy of his own in virtue and bravery. You have been the best of daughters to your parents – you will likewise be a tender wife to your husband."

Odelin's widow was giving expression to these sentiments when Louis Rennepont, after exchanging in a low voice a few words with his wife Theresa, words such as the solemnity of the occasion prompted, cried out aloud: "Look yonder! there, under us – among the debris of the breach – is not that the Franc-Taupin? Your uncle seems to be emerging from underground. He must be preparing some trick of his trade."

"It is he, indeed!" exclaimed Antonicq, no less surprised than his brother-in-law. "And there is my apprentice Serpentin also – who is following the Franc-Taupin out of the hole."

These words drew the attention of Cornelia, Theresa and Odelin's widow. They looked down the steep slope formed by the ruins of that portion of the bastion that the enemy had demolished. The Franc-Taupin had emerged from a narrow and deep excavation, dug under the ruins. A lad of thirteen or fourteen years followed him. They covered up the opening that had given them egress. After doing so, Serpentin, the apprentice of the armorer Antonicq, went down upon his knees, and moving backward on all fours, uncoiled, under the directions of the Franc-Taupin, a long thin fuse, the other end of which was deep down the excavation which they had just covered. Still moving towards the parapet, Serpentin continued to uncoil the fuse, and, upon orders from the Franc-Taupin, stopped at about twenty paces from the wall and sat down on a stone.

"Halloa, uncle!" cried Antonicq, leaning over the edge of one of the embrasures. "Here we are; come and join us."

Hearing his nephew's voice, the Franc-Taupin raised his head, made him a sign to wait, and after giving Serpentin some further directions, the aged soldier clambered over the ruins with remarkable agility for a man of his years, and walked over to where Antonicq stood waiting for him.

"Where do you come from, uncle?"

"Well, my boy, what do you expect of me? A taupin I was in my young days, and now in my old days I relapse into my old trade. I come from underground, through a shaft that I dug through the ruins with the aid of Serpentin, about a hundred paces from here. There I laid a mine, right in the middle of the breach where the good Catholics will soon be running to the assault. The moment I see them there I shall lovingly set the fuse on fire – and, triple petard! the St. Bartholomew lambkins will leap up in the air yelling and spitting fire like five hundred devils, their heads down, their legs skyward. The dance will end with a shower of shattered limbs."

"Well schemed, my old mole!" said Master Barbot. "Fire below, fire above, like the beautiful sheets that I hammer on the anvil. The burning lava of my censer will blaze over the skulls of the royalists, your fuse will blaze under the soles of their feet, and hurl the miscreants into the air capering, turning somersaults, whirling, cavorting, and – " but suddenly breaking off, Master Barbot let himself down upon the ground, and joining the word to the deed, called out:

"Down upon your faces, everybody! Look out for the bullets!"

Master Barbot's advice was quickly followed. Everybody near him threw himself down flat at the very moment that a volley of bullets whistled overhead or struck the parapet, some ricocheting and upturning gabions and logs of wood, others plowing their way through the debris where the imperturbable Serpentin was seated near the fuse that led down to the mine. Despite the danger, the brave lad did not budge from his post. A lucky accident willed it that none of the besieged was wounded by this first salvo of artillery. Master Barbot, the first one to rise to his feet, cast his eyes upon the enemy's batteries, which were still partly wrapped in the clouds of smoke from the first discharge, perceived the first ranks of the assaulting column sallying from its trenches, and instantly gave the signal:

"Everyone to his post! The enemy is advancing!"

"To arms! Rochelois, to arms!"

Master Barbot's call, was answered by a long roll of drums, ordered by Colonel Plouernel. His strong and penetrating voice rose above the din, and his words were heard:

"Soldiers, to the ramparts! Cannoniers, to your pieces! Fire, all along the line!"

"May God guard you, mother, sister, Cornelia!" said Antonicq.

"May God guard you, my wife!" said Louis Rennepont.

"So long, comrade Barbot!" cried the Franc-Taupin, pulling a tinder box from his pocket and sliding down the slope of the breach to rejoin Serpentin. "I shall get myself ready to make the limbs of those St. Bartholomew lambkins scamper through the air."

"And you, my brave girls, to the censer!" cried Master Barbot to the Rochelois women. "Replace the caldron over the fire, and, when you hear me give the order: 'Serve it hot!' turn it and empty it over the heads of the assailants. You others, hold your levers ready near those stones and hogsheads of sand. When you hear me say: 'Roll!' push hard and let it all come down upon them."

Suddenly, fresh but more distant and redoubling detonations of artillery in the direction of the Congues Gate announced the enemy's intention of making a diversion by attempting two simultaneous attacks upon the city. The pastor arrived at that moment upon the ramparts at the head of his troop of women whom the Bombarde and her companions had joined. Some reinforced the women charged with rolling the stones upon the assailants; others organized themselves to transport the wounded; finally a third set, armed with cutlasses, pikes and axes, made ready to resist the assailants at close quarters. At the head of these the Bombarde brandished a harpoon.

His best marksmen had been placed by Colonel Plouernel in the underground casemates, thereby forming, on the other side of the circumvallation, a second line of defense, the loop-holes of which, bearing a strong resemblance to the airholes of a cavern, allowed a murderous fire to be directed upon the enemy. Finally, the companies of arquebusiers were massed upon the breach, which was defended by heaped-up beams and gabions that the Rochelois women assisted in bringing together. A solemn silence reigned among the besieged during the short interval of time that the royalists occupied in rushing through the distance that separated them from the outer edge of our moat. All of us felt that the fate of La Rochelle depended upon the issue of the assault.

Old Marshal Montluc was in chief command of the Catholics. Monsieur Du Guast, at the head of six battalions of veteran Swiss troops, led the column, with Marshal Montluc in the center, and in the rear Colonel Strozzi, one of the best officers of the Catholic army. His task was to reinforce and sustain the attack in case the first companies wavered, or were repulsed. These troops advanced in good order, drums beating, trumpets blaring, colors flying, and captained by the flower of the nobility – the Dukes of Guise and Aumale, the Bastard of Angouleme, Henry of Bearn, who was now the King's brother-in-law, and Henry of Condé. The two renegates now were in arms against our cause. Finally, there were also Mayenne, Biron, Cosseins, D'O, Chateau-Vieux, and innumerable other noble captains, all crowding near the King's brother, the Duke of Anjou, who marched in the center at the side of Marshal Montluc. The moment that the front ranks of the vanguard reached the thither side of the fosse, Alderman Gargouillaud considered the enemy to be within reach of his cannoniers, and gave the order for a plunging and ricocheting fire. The effect of the salvo was deadly. The thunder-struck vanguard wavered and recoiled. The Rochelois gained time to reload their pieces. A second discharge, fully as deadly as the first, mowed down as many as before, and increased the indecision of the assailants. Old Marshal Montluc, Biron and Cosseins revived the shaken courage of their troops, held them, and forced them back. The dash was made. Leaving the dead and wounded behind, the column crossed the moat; it answered with its arquebuses those of the besieged as it pushed up the slope of the breach, receiving the cross fire from the casemates upon both its flanks, while, from the companies ranged upon the ramparts, its front was met with a hailstorm of bullets. Despite severe losses, the royalists steadily climbed up the slope of the breach. The Franc-Taupin and his aide, who until that instant lay flat upon their faces behind a heap of debris, suddenly rose and ran towards the circumvallation as fast as their legs could carry them. They had fired the fuse. Hardly were they at a safe distance, when the mine took fire under the feet of the enemy. A frightful explosion threw up a spout of earth, dust and rocks, interspersed with jets of fire, fulgent like lightning through thick clouds of smoke. The smoke slowly dissipated. The slope of the breach reappeared to view. It was torn up and cut through by a deep and wide cleft, the sides of which were strewn with the dismembered bodies of the dead and dying. The soldiers of the vanguard who escaped the disaster were seized with terror, turned upon their heels, rushed back upon their center, trampled it down, threw it into a panic, and spread consternation, crying that the passage of the breach was mined under the feet of the besiegers. The ranks were broken; confusion reigned, the rout commenced. The Rochelois cannoniers now worked their pieces in quick succession, and plowed wide gaps into the compact mass of the fleeing invaders, while the Franc-Taupin, standing beside one of the embrasures and calmly crossing his hands behind his back, remarked to Master Barbot:

"Well, comrade, there they are – heads, arms, trunks, legs. They have danced the saraband to the tune of my mine. I have given a ball to the Catholics, to the defenders of the throne and the altar!"

"Ha! Ha!" replied the boilermaker. "The St. Bartholomew lambkins are going back faster than they came. Should they come back again I shall dish up to them my steaming basin in order to comfort the lacerated feelings of those cut-throats whom the Pope has blessed."

The royalist soldiers could not be rallied by their officers until they were beyond the reach of our guns. They were then re-formed into a new column. The most daring of their captains placed themselves resolutely at their head in order to lead them back to the assault. Preceding this phalanx of intrepid men by several paces, a Cordelier monk, holding a crucifix in one hand and a cutlass in the other, rushed forward to be the first to storm the breach, shouting in a piercing voice the ominous slogan of St. Bartholomew's night: "God and the King!" The monk's example and the enthusiasm of the captains carried the assailants away. They forgot their recent panic, and turned about face to renew the struggle, shouting in chorus "God and the King!" In vain did the fire of the besieged make havoc among them. They closed ranks; they rushed forward at the double quick; they ran up the slope of the breach; they even passed beyond the chasm produced by the late mine explosion. At that moment Master Barbot called out to the Rochelois women in charge of the censer: "Quick! Quick! my daughters! Pour it down hot upon the Catholic vermin! Anoint the devout papists with our holy and consecrated oil!"

And immediately turning to the other set of women charged with rolling stones down upon the enemy's heads, "To work, my brave women!" shouted the boilermaker. "Crush the infamous pack to dust! Exterminate the brood of Satan!"

Instantly a flood of incandescent oil, bitumen and sulphur poured down like a wide sheet of flame upon the front ranks of the besiegers. They recoiled, trampled down the ranks behind them, and emitted hideous cries of anguish. Every drop of the molten liquid bored a hole through the flesh to the bone. At the same moment enormous blocks of stone and masses of sand rolled, rapid and irresistible, down the slope of the breach, overthrowing, breaking, crushing, smashing whatever stood in their way. Joined to this murderous defense was the frightfully effective fire of our arquebusiers, who shot unerringly, at close range, themselves safe, upon a foe in disorder. And yet, however decimated and broken, the royalists stuck to the assault until they finally reached the circumvallation. The exchange of arquebus shots then ceased and a furious hand-to-hand struggle ensued with swords, cutlasses and pikes. No quarter was given. The conflict was pitiless. The Rochelois women, among them Cornelia, armed with the iron rod of the censer, and the Bombarde, brandishing her harpoon, vied with the men in deeds of daring. These Rochelois women were everywhere among the male combatants, and cut a wide swath with their weapons, wielded by their white yet nervy arms, after the fashion of the Gallic women who made a front to the legions of Caesar. Twice did Colonel Plouernel, Captain Normand, Alderman Gargouillaud, Master Barbot, Antonicq Lebrenn, Louis Rennepont and their fellow defenders drive the Catholics back beyond the breach; twice did the Catholics, superior in numbers, drive the Rochelois back to the terrace of the rampart. Thus did the battle fluctuate, when Mayor Morrisson came to the aid of the Protestants with a fresh troop of citizens. The timely reinforcement changed the face of the struggle. For a third time rolled back beyond the breach, the assailants were precipitated into the pits or whipped down the slope. Their rout then became complete, wild, disordered. Our arquebusiers, whose fire had stopped during the hand-to-hand conflict, now took aim again, and decimated the fleeing, while our artillery mowed them down. This time the royalist rout was complete – final. Those of them who escaped the carnage, made haste to place themselves behind the shelter of their own lines.

Victory to the Rochelois! Oh, sons of Joel, victory! Long live the Commune!

CHAPTER XI.

CAPTURE OF CORNELIA

The victory of the Rochelois was a bloody one, and dearly did we pay for it. We numbered over eleven hundred of our people killed or disabled, men and women. Cornelia Mirant received a wound upon the neck; the Bombarde perished in the breach. Marcienne, Odelin's widow, was struck by a bullet and killed near the rampart as she was bringing aid to a wounded soldier; Antonicq's arm was run through by a pike; Colonel Plouernel was carried to his house in a nearly dying condition with two arquebus shots in his chest. Louis Rennepont, his wife Theresa, Master Barbot, the Franc-Taupin and Serpentin, his assistant in mining, came safe and sound out of the engagement. The Rochelois gathered in the dead and wounded. The Lebrenn family carried to their house the corpse of Odelin's widow. A sad funeral march! But, alas, in these distressful times the exigencies of the public weal have precedence over the holiest of sorrows. One enjoys leisure to weep over his dead only after having avenged them. The triumph of a day does not remove the apprehensions for the morrow. The royalist assault, so valiantly repelled by the people of La Rochelle, might be renewed the very next day, due to the large reserve forces of the Catholic army, only a small portion of which took part in the attack upon the Bastion of the Evangelium. The City Council urged all the remaining able-bodied citizens to proceed without delay to repair the breach, seeing that the moon, then at her full, would light them at their work during the whole night. Fresh defenses were to be immediately raised upon the side of the assaulted bastion. Then, also, famine was staring the city in the face. Precautions were needed against that emergency. Captain Mirant's ships, which were to revictual the city and replenish its magazines of war, still failed to be descried at sea, notwithstanding a strong wind rose from the southwest towards sunset. The last bags of beans were distributed among the combatants, whose exhaustion demanded immediate attention after the day's conflict. The supply barely sufficed to allay the pangs of hunger. Consequently, in order to insure food for the next day, the women and children were summoned by the aldermen to be at the Two Mills Gate by one o'clock in the morning, the hour of low tide, and favorable for the digging of clams. The gathering of these mollusks offered a precious resource to the besieged, but it was as perilous as battle itself. The Bayhead redoubt, raised by the royalists at the extremity of the tongue of land that ran deep into the offing, could sweep with its cannon the beach on which the clams were to be dug. Towards one in the morning the City Hall bell rang the summons. Upon hearing the agreed-upon signal, the Rochelois women of all conditions issued forth with those of their children who were considered strong enough to join the expedition. Each was equipped with a basket. They met at the Two Mills Gate where they found the wife and two daughters of Morrisson the Mayor. They set the example of public spirit. Accordingly, while the male population of La Rochelle was busily engaged in repairing the breach, the women and children sallied forth from the city in search of provisions for all. Although smarting from her wound, and despite the protests of Antonicq, Cornelia Mirant determined to share with Theresa Rennepont the risks of the nocturnal expedition after clams. She joined the troop of women and children.

About four or five hundred Rochelois women issued forth from the Two Mills Gate, situated near the Lantern Tower, in search of clams to feed the population. They were soon upon the beach. Bounded on the right by a ledge of rocks, the beach extended to the left as far as the roadstead in front of the inner port of La Rochelle, a roadstead narrowed towards its entrance by two tongues of land, each of which was armed with a hostile redoubt. The Bayhead redoubt could at once cover with its fire the narrow entrance of the bay, and sweep the full length and breadth of the beach upon which the Rochelois women now scattered and were actively engaged in picking up at the foot of the rocks, aided by the light of the moon, the mollusks that they came in search of. At the start the Bayhead redoubt gave them no trouble, although the enemy's attention must undoubtedly have been attracted by the large number of white head-covers and scarlet skirts, the time-honored costume of the Rochelois women. Already the baskets were handsomely filling with clams – the "celestial manna" as Mayor Morrisson called them – when suddenly a bright flash of light threw its reflection upon the small puddles of water on the beach, a detonation was heard, and a light cloud of smoke rose above the redoubt. A shiver ran over the clam-digging Rochelois women, and profound silence took the place of their previous chatter.

"The royalists have seen us!" said Theresa Rennepont to Cornelia. "They have begun firing upon us."

"No!" cried Cornelia with mixed joy and alarm as she looked in the direction of the battery. "The enemy is firing upon my father's brigantines! There they are! There they are, at last! God be praised! If they enter port, La Rochelle is saved from famine! Do you see them, Theresa? Do you see, yonder, their white sails glistening in the moonlight? The ships are drawing near. They come laden with victory to us!"

And the young maid, moved with a joy that overcame her alarm, raised her beautiful face to heaven, and in a voice quivering with enthusiasm exclaimed: "Oh, Lord! Guard my father's life! Grant victory to the sacred cause of freedom!"

All thought of the clams was instantly dropped. The women pressed close to the water's edge; with eyes fixed upon the ships, they awaited anxiously the issue of the combat upon which depended the victualing of their city. It was a solemn moment; an imposing spectacle. The further extremities of the two tongues of land that enclosed the outer bay and left but a narrow entrance to the port, threw their black profiles upon the waves, silvered by the moon. The four brigantines were sailing in single file before the wind with a full spread of canvas, towards the dangerous passage which they had to enter under the cross fire of the enemy's redoubts. A rapid and frightful cannonade followed upon the first shot which had startled the women. Already the first one of the four vessels had entered the passage, when, despite the firmness of her nature, Cornelia emitted a cry of distress and said in consternation to Theresa:

"Look, the mast of the forward brigantine is down! It must have been struck by a ball! Good God, my father is lost if he should be on that vessel – dismantled – unable to move – exposed to the fire of the enemy!"

"All is lost! Alas, all is lost!"

"The brigantines are returning to the open sea!"

"Captain Mirant flees without giving battle! without answering the enemy's fire! without giving back a single shot!"

"Come, let us return to our clams – henceforth the only resource of La Rochelle! Let us continue picking up clams!"

"No! My father is not fleeing from battle," answered Cornelia. "By sailing back he means to tow the dismantled ship out of harm's way. No, Captain Mirant is not fleeing from battle! Do you not see that his vessels are now lying to? They are not sailing away!"

The words of Cornelia, who was long familiar with nautical manoeuvres, thanks to the many voyages she made on board her father's vessels, revived the hopes of the Rochelois women. Their eyes returned with renewed anxiety to the entrance of the port. But, alas, as they did so, none perceived that soldiers of the royal army were coming out of the Bayhead redoubt, and, screened by the shadows cast by the rocks that were strewn to the right of the beach, were silently creeping nearer behind the massive blocks.

"What did I tell you?" Cornelia proceeded to explain. "The brigantines are sailing back again into the passage. The forward one, with the dismantled vessel in tow, is opening fire upon the royalist redoubt. No! Captain Mirant's cannons have not lost their speech!"

And so it was. The brigantine that had the dismantled vessel in tow sailed intrepidly into the passage, returning the enemy's fire from both broadsides. The enemy's redoubts, especially the Bayhead, being the better equipped, replied to the brigantine. Suddenly, however, a cry of terror escaped from all breasts. The brigantine that led was enveloped in a thick smoke which here and there was reddened by the ruddy glow of flames.

The agony of the women of La Rochelle redoubled. Their attention, held captive by the spectacle in the bay, prevented their noticing the Catholic soldiers, who, in increasing numbers, were approaching, hidden behind the last rocks of the ledge. Suddenly the echoes around the rocks repeated, like the reverberations of thunder, the roar of a tremendous explosion. The dismantled vessel, which carried a full load of powder, was blown into the air after being set on fire, not by the enemy, but by Captain Mirant himself; and, as it blew up, it partly dismantled the Bayhead redoubt. The manoeuvre was successful. Not only was the redoubt crippled, but a large number of the soldiers and cannoniers who manned it perished under the ruins of their own batteries. So soon as the intrepid mariner saw one of his vessels disabled from proceeding on its voyage, he had taken her in tow; veered about with the end in view of withdrawing his flotilla from the enemy's fire long enough to enable him to perfect his newly conceived strategy; heaped inflammable materials upon the disabled ship; left the powder in her hold; transferred the sailors to his own bottom; veered again; sailed under full canvas before the wind straight into the passage; and leading in tow the floating incendiary machine which he had just improvised, set it on fire, and cut the cable just before arriving in front of the redoubt, convinced, by his intimate acquaintance with the currents along the coast, that they would drive ashore and against the redoubt the floating firebrand loaded with powder, which, when exploding, would shake the royalist battery to pieces. It happened as Captain Mirant calculated. Once the redoubt was in ruins, Captain Mirant had nothing to fear except from the inferior battery raised on the opposite tongue of land. The bold mariner now proceeded on his course followed by his remaining vessels, deliberately answering the inoffensive shots from the opposite side. Finally, with only the perforation of some of their sails, and a few bullets lodged in their sides, the three vessels steered straight towards the entrance of the interior port of La Rochelle, which they were to save from famine, and re-supply with munitions of war.