PROLOGUE. THE CITY OF AVIGNON
We do not know if the prologue we are going to present to our readers'eyes be very useful, nevertheless we cannot resist the desire to make ofit, not the first chapter, but the preface of this book.
The more we advance in life, the more we advance in art, the moreconvinced we become that nothing is abrupt and isolated; that natureand society progress by evolution and not by chance, and that the event,flower joyous or sad, perfumed or fetid, beneficent or fatal, whichunfolds itself to-day before our eyes, was sown in the past, and hadits roots sometimes in days anterior to ours, even as it will bear itsfruits in the future.
Young, man accepts life as it comes, enamored of yestereen, carelessof the day, heeding little the morrow. Youth is the springtide with itsdewy dawns and its beautiful nights; if sometimes a storm clouds thesky, it gathers, mutters and disperses, leaving the sky bluer, theatmosphere purer, and Nature more smiling than before. What use is therein reflecting on this storm that passes swift as a caprice, ephemeralas a fancy? Before we have discovered the secret of the meteorologicalenigma, the storm will have disappeared.
But it is not thus with the terrible phenomena, which at the close ofsummer, threaten our harvests; or in the midst of autumn, assail ourvintages; we ask whither they go, we query whence they come, we seek ameans to prevent them.
To the thinker, the historian, the poet, there is a far deeper subjectfor reflection in revolutions, these tempests of the social atmospherewhich drench the earth with blood, and crush an entire generation ofmen, than in those upheavals of nature which deluge a harvest, or flaythe vineyards with hail--that is to say, the fruits of a single harvest,wreaking an injury, which can at the worst be repaired the ensuing year;unless the Lord be in His days of wrath.
Thus, in other days, be it forgetfulness, heedlessness or ignoranceperhaps--(blessed he who is ignorant! a fool he who is wise!)--in otherdays in relating the story which I am going to tell you to-day I would,without pausing at the place where the first scene of this book occurs,have accorded it but a superficial mention, and traversing the Midi likeany other province, have named Avignon like any other city.
But to-day it is no longer the same; I am no longer tossed by theflurries of spring, but by the storms of summer, the tempests ofautumn. To-day when I name Avignon, I evoke a spectre; and, like Antonydisplaying Caesar's toga, say:
"Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through; See what a rent the envious Casca made; Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed--"
So, seeing the bloody shroud of the papal city, I say: "Behold the bloodof the Albigenses, and here the blood of the Cevennais; behold the bloodof the Republicans, and here the blood of the Royalists; behold theblood of Lescuyer; behold the blood of Marechal Brune."
And I feel myself seized with a profound sadness, and I begin to write,but at the first lines I perceive that, without suspecting it, thehistorian's chisel has superseded the novelist's pen in my hand.
Well, let us be both. Reader, grant me these ten, fifteen, twenty pagesto the historian; the novelist shall have the rest.
Let us say, therefore, a few words about Avignon, the place where thefirst scene of the new book which we are offering to the public, opens.Perhaps, before reading what we have to say, it would be well to cast aglance at what its native historian, Francois Nouguier, says of it.
"Avignon," he writes, "a town noble for its antiquity, pleasing inits site, superb for its walls, smiling for the fertility of its soil,charming for the gentleness of its inhabitants, magnificent for itspalace, beautiful in its broad streets, marvellous in the constructionof its bridge, rich because of its commerce, and known to all theworld."
May the shade of Francois Nouguier pardon us if we do not at first seehis city with the same eyes as he does. To those who know Avignon be itto say who has best described it, the historian or the novelist.
It is but just to assert in the first place that Avignon is a townby itself, that is to say, a town of extreme passions. The period ofreligious dissensions, which culminated for her in political hatreds,dates from the twelfth century. After his flight from Lyons, the valleysof Mont Ventoux sheltered Pierre de Valdo and his Vaudois, the ancestorsof those Protestants who, under the name of the Albigenses, cost theCounts of Toulouse, and transferred to the papacy, the seven chateauxwhich Raymond VI. possessed in Languedoc.
Avignon, a powerful republic governed by podestats, refused to submitto the King of France. One morning Louis VIII., who thought it easierto make a crusade against Avignon like Simon de Montfort, than againstJerusalem like Philippe Auguste; one morning, we say, Louis VIII.appeared before the gates of Avignon, demanding admission with lances atrest, visor down, banners unfurled and trumpets of war sounding.
The bourgeois refused. They offered the King of France, as a lastconcession, a peaceful entrance, lances erect, and the royal banneralone unfurled. The King laid siege to the town, a siege which lastedthree months, during which, says the chronicler, the bourgeois ofAvignon returned the French soldiers arrow for arrow, wound for wound,death for death.
The city capitulated at length. Louis VIII. brought the RomanCardinal-Legate, Saint-Angelo, in his train. It was he who dictated theterms, veritable priestly terms, hard and unconditional. The Avignonesewere commanded to demolish their ramparts, to fill their moats, to razethree hundred towers, to sell their vessels, and to burn their enginesand machines of war. They had moreover to pay an enormous impost, toabjure the Vaudois heresy, and maintain thirty men fully armed andequipped, in Palestine, to aid in delivering the tomb of Christ. Andfinally, to watch over the fulfillment of these terms, of which the bullis still extant in the city archives, a brotherhood of penitents wasfounded which, reaching down through six centuries, still exists in ourdays.
In opposition to these penitents, known as the "White Penitents," theorder of the "Black Penitents" was founded, imbued with the spirit ofopposition of Raymond of Toulouse.
From that day forth the religious hatreds developed into politicalhatreds. It was not sufficient that Avignon should be the land ofheresy. She was destined to become the theatre of schisms.
Permit us, in connection with this French Rome, a short historicaldigression. Strictly speaking, it is not essential to the subjectof which we treat, and we were perhaps wiser to launch ourselvesimmediately into the heart of the drama; but we trust that we will beforgiven. We write more particularly for those who, in a novel, likeoccasionally to meet with something more than fiction.
In 1285 Philippe le Bel ascended the throne.
It is a great historical date, this date of 1285. The papacy which, inthe person of Gregory VII., successfully opposed the Emperor of Germany;the papacy which, vanquished in matters temporal by Henry IV., yetvanquished him morally. This papacy was slapped by a simple Sabinegentleman, and the steel gauntlet of Colonna reddened the cheek ofBoniface VIII. But the King of France, whose hand had really dealt thisblow, what happened to him under the successor of Boniface VIII.?
This successor was Benedict XI., a man of low origin, but who mightperhaps have developed into a man of genius, had they allowed him thetime. Too weak for an open struggle with Philippe le Bel, he found ameans which would have been the envy of the founder of a celebratedorder two hundred years later. He pardoned Colonna openly.
To pardon Colonna was to declare Colonna culpable, since culprits alonehave need of pardon. If Colonna were guilty, the King of France was atleast his accomplice.
There was some danger in supporting such an argument; also BenedictXI. was pope but eight months. One day a veiled woman, a pretendedlay-sister of Sainte-Petronille at Perugia, came to him while he wasat table, offering him a basket of figs. Did it conceal an asp likeCleopatra's? The fact is that on the morrow the Holy See was vacant.
Then Philippe le Bel had a strange idea; so strange that it must, atfirst, have seemed an hallucination.
It was to withdraw the papacy from Rome, to install it in France, to putit in jail, and force it to co
in money for his profit.
The reign of Philippe le Bel was the advent of gold. Gold! that was thesole and unique god of this king who had slapped a pope. Saint Louis hada priest, the worthy Abbe Suger, for minister; Philippe le Bel had twobankers, two Florentines, Biscio and Musiato.
Do you expect, dear reader, that we are about to fall into thephilosophical commonplace of anathematizing gold? You are mistaken.
In the thirteenth century gold meant progress. Until then nothing wasknown but the soil. Gold was the soil converted into money, thesoil mobilized, exchangeable, transportable, divisible, subtilized,spiritualized, as it were.
So long as the soil was not represented by gold, man, like the godThermes, that landmark of the fields, had his feet imprisoned by theearth. Formerly the earth bore man, to-day man bears the earth.
But this gold had to be abstracted from its hiding-place, and it washidden far otherwise than in the mines of Chile or Mexico. All the goldwas in the possession of the churches and the Jews. To extract it fromthis double mine it needed more than a king; it required a pope.
And that is why Philippe le Bel, that great exploiter of gold, resolvedto have a pope of his own. Benedict XI. dead, a conclave was held atPerugia; at this conclave the French cardinals were in the majority.Philippe le Bel cast his eyes upon the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrandde Got, and to him he gave rendezvous in a forest near Saint-Jeand'Angely.
Bertrand de Got took heed not to miss that appointment.
The King and the Archbishop heard mass there, and at the moment when theHost was elevated, they bound themselves by this God they glorified toabsolute secrecy. Bertrand de Got was still ignorant of the matter inquestion. Mass over, Philippe le Bel said:
"Archbishop, I have it in my power to make thee pope."
Bertrand de Got listened no longer, but cast himself at the King's feet,saying:
"What must I do to obtain this?"
"Accord me the six favors which I shall ask of thee," replied Philippele Bel.
"It's for thee to command and for me to obey," said the future Pope.
The vow of servitude was taken.
The King raised Bertrand de Got, and, kissing him on the mouth, said:
"The six favors which I demand of thee are these: First, thou shaltreconcile me completely with the Church, and grant me pardon for themisdeed that I committed toward Boniface VIII. Second, thou shaltrestore to me and mine the right of communion of which the Court of Romedeprived me. Third, thou shalt grant me the clergy's tithe in my kingdomfor the next five years, to help defray the expenses of the war inFlanders. Fourth, thou shalt destroy and annul the memory of PopeBoniface VIII. Fifth, thou shalt bestow the dignity of cardinal uponMessires Jacopo and Pietro de Colonna. As to the sixth favor andpromise, that I shall reserve to speak to thee thereof in its time andplace."
Bertrand de Got swore to the promises and favors known, and to thepromise and favor unknown. This last, which the King had not dared tomention in connection with the others, was the abolition of the KnightsTemplar. Besides the promises made on the Corpus Domini, Bertrand de Gotgave as hostages his brother and two of his nephews. The King swore onhis side that he should be elected pope.
This scene, set in the deep shadows of a crossroad in the forest,resembled rather an evocation between magician and demon than anagreement entered upon between king and pope.
Also the coronation of the King, which took place shortly afterwardat Lyons, and which began the Church's captivity, seemed but littleagreeable to God. Just as the royal procession was passing, a wallcrowded with spectators fell, wounding the King and killing the Duc deBretagne. The Pope was thrown to the ground, and his tiara rolled in themud.
Bertrand de Got was elected pope under the name of Clement V.
Clement V. paid all that Bertrand de Got had promised. Philippe wasabsolved, Holy Communion restored to him and his, the purple againdescended upon the shoulders of the Colonna, the Church was obligedto defray the expenses of the war in Flanders and Philippe de Valois'scrusade against the Greek Empire. The memory of Pope Boniface VIII. was,if not destroyed and annulled, at least besmirched; the walls of theTemple were razed, and the Templars burned on the open space of the PontNeuf.
All these edicts--they were no longer called bulls from the moment thetemporal power dictated them--all these edicts were dated at Avignon.
Philippe le Bel was the richest of all the kings of the French monarchy;he possessed an inexhaustible treasury, that is to say, his pope. He hadpurchased him, he used him, he put him to the press, and as cider flowsfrom apples, so did this crushed pope bleed gold. The pontificate,struck by the Colonna in the person of Boniface VIII., abdicated theempire of the world in the person of Clement V.
We have related the advent of the king of blood and the pope of gold.We know how they ended. Jacques de Molay, from his funeral pyre, adjuredthem both to appear before God within the year. _Ae to geron sithullia_,says Aristophanes. "Dying hoary heads possess the souls of sibyls."
Clement V. departed first. In a vision he saw his palace in flames."From that moment," says Baluze, "he became sad and lasted but a shorttime."
Seven months later it was Philippe's turn. Some say that he was killedwhile hunting, overthrown by a wild boar. Dante is among their number."He," said he, "who was seen near the Seine falsifying the coin of therealm shall die by the tusk of a boar." But Guillaume de Nangis makesthe royal counterfeiter die of a death quite otherwise providential.
"Undermined by a malady unknown to the physicians, Philippe expired,"said he, "to the great astonishment of everybody, without either hispulse or his urine revealing the cause of his malady or the imminence ofthe danger."
The King of Debauchery, the King of Uproar, Louis X., called the Hutin,succeeded his father, Philippe le Bel; John XXII. to Clement V.
Avignon then became in truth a second Rome. John XXII. and Clement VI.anointed her queen of luxury. The manners and customs of the times madeher queen of debauchery and indulgence. In place of her towers, razed byRomain de Saint-Angelo, Hernandez de Heredi, grand master of Saint-Jeanof Jerusalem, girdled her with a belt of walls. She possessed dissolutemonks, who transformed the blessed precincts of her convents into placesof debauchery and licentiousness; her beautiful courtesans tore thediamonds from the tiara to make of them bracelets and necklaces; andfinally she possessed the echoes of Vaucluse, which wafted the melodiousstrains of Petrarch's songs to her.
This lasted until King Charles V., who was a virtuous and pious prince,having resolved to put an end to the scandal, sent the Marechal deBoucicaut to drive out the anti-pope, Benedict XIII., from Avignon. Butat sight of the soldiers of the King of France the latter rememberedthat before being pope under the name of Benedict XIII. he had beencaptain under the name of Pierre de Luna. For five months he defendedhimself, pointing his engines of war with his own hands from the heightsof the chateau walls, engines otherwise far more murderous than hispontifical bolts. At last forced to flee, he left the city by apostern, after having ruined a hundred houses and killed four thousandAvignonese, and fled to Spain, where the King of Aragon offered himsanctuary.
There each morning, from the summit of a tower, assisted by the twopriests who constituted his sacred college, he blessed the whole world,which was none the better for it, and excommunicated his enemies, whowere none the worse for it. At last, feeling himself nigh to death,and fearing lest the schism die with him, he elected his two vicarscardinals on the condition that after his death one of the two wouldelect the other pope. The election was made. The new pope, supported bythe cardinal who made him, continued the schism for awhile. Finally bothentered into negotiations with Rome, made honorable amends, and returnedto the fold of Holy Church, one with the title of Arch bishop ofSeville, the other as Archbishop of Toledo.
From this time until 1790 Avignon, widowed of her popes, was governedby legates and vice-legates. Seven sovereign pontiffs had residedwithin her walls some seven decades; she had seven hospitals, sevenfraternities of penite
nts, seven monasteries, seven convents, sevenparishes, and seven cemeteries.
To those who know Avignon there was at that epoch--there is yet--twocities within a city: the city of the priests, that is to say, the Romancity, and the city of the merchants, that is to say, the French city.The city of the priests, with its papal palace, its hundred churches,its innumerable bell-towers, ever ready to sound the tocsin ofconflagration, the knell of slaughter. The town of the merchants, withits Rhone, its silk-workers, its crossroads, extending north, east,south and west, from Lyons to Marseilles, from Nimes to Turin. TheFrench city, the accursed city, longing for a king, jealous of itsliberties, shuddering beneath its yoke of vassalage, a vassalage of thepriests with the clergy for its lord.
The clergy--not the pious clergy, tolerantly austere in the practiceof its duty and charity, living in the world to console and edifyit, without mingling in its joys and passions--but a clergy such asintrigue, cupidity, and ambition had made it; that is to say, thecourt abbes, rivalling the Roman priests, indolent, libertine, elegant,impudent, kings of fashion, autocrats of the salon, kissing the hands ofthose ladies of whom they boasted themselves the paramours, giving theirhands to kiss to the women of the people whom they honored by makingtheir mistresses.
Do you want a type of those abbes? Take the Abbe Maury. Proud as a duke,insolent as a lackey, the son of a shoemaker, more aristocratic than theson of a great lord.
One understands that these two categories of inhabitants, representingthe one heresy, the other orthodoxy; the one the French party, the otherthe Roman party; the one the party of absolute monarchy, the other thatof progressive constitutionalism, were not elements conducive to thepeace and security of this ancient pontifical city. One understands,we say, that at the moment when the revolution broke out in Paris, andmanifested itself by the taking of the Bastille, that the two parties,hot from the religious wars of Louis XIV., could not remain inert in thepresence of each other.
We have said, Avignon, city of priests; let us add, city of hatreds.Nowhere better than in convent towns does one learn to hate. The heartof the child, everywhere else free from wicked passions, was born therefull of paternal hatreds, inherited from father to son for the lasteight hundred years, and after a life of hate, bequeathed in its turn, adiabolical heritage, to his children.
Therefore, at the first cry of liberty which rang through France theFrench town rose full of joy and hope. The moment had come at last forher to contest aloud that concession made by a young queen, a minor,in expiation of her sins, of a city and a province, and with it half amillion souls. By what right had she sold these souls in aeternum to thehardest and most exacting of all masters, the Roman Pontiff?
All France was hastening to assemble in the fraternal embrace of theFederation at the Champ de Mars. Was she not France? Her sons ejecteddelegates to wait upon the legate and request him respectfully to leavethe city, giving him twenty-four hours in which to do so.
During the night the papists amused themselves by hanging from a gibbetan effigy of straw wearing the tri-color cockade.
The course of the Rhone has been controlled, the Durance canalled, dikeshave been built to restrain the fierce torrents, which, at the meltingof the snows, pour in liquid avalanches from the summits of Mt. Ventoux.But this terrible flood, this living flood, this human torrent thatrushed leaping through the rapid inclines of the streets of Avignon,once released, once flooding, not even God Himself has yet sought tostay it.
At sight of this manikin with the national colors, dancing at the endof a cord, the French city rose upon its very foundations with terriblecries of rage. Four papist, suspected of this sacrilege, two marquises,one burgher, and a workman, were torn from their homes and hung in themanikin's stead. This occurred the eleventh of June, 1790.
The whole French town wrote to the National Assembly that she gaveherself to France, and with her the Rhone, her commerce, the Midi, andthe half of Provence.
The National Assembly was in one of its reactionary moods. It did notwish to quarrel with the Pope; it dallied with the King, and the matterwas adjourned. From that moment the rising became a revolt, and the Popewas free to do with Avignon what the court might have done with Paris,if the Assembly had delayed its proclamation of the Rights of Man.The Pope ordered the annulment of all that had occurred at the ComtatVenaissin, the re-establishment of the privileges of the nobles andclergy, and the reinstallation of the Inquisition in all its rigor. Thepontifical decrees were affixed to the walls.
One man, one only, in broad daylight dared to go straight to the walls,in face of all, and tear down the decree. His name was Lescuyer. Hewas not a young man; and therefore it was not the fire of youth thatimpelled him. No, he was almost an old man who did not even belong tothe province. He was a Frenchman from Picardy, ardent yet reflective, aformer notary long since established at Avignon.
It was a crime that Roman Avignon remembered; a crime so great that theVirgin wept!
You see Avignon is another Italy. She must have her miracles, and ifGod will not perform them, so surely will some one be at hand to inventthem. Still further, the miracle must be a miracle pertaining to theVirgin. La Madonna! the mind, the heart, the tongue of the Italians arefull of these two words.
It was in the Church of the Cordeliers that this miracle occurred. Thecrowd rushed there. It was much that the Virgin should weep; but a rumorspread at the same time that brought the excitement to a climax. A largecoffer, tightly sealed, had been carried through the city; this chesthad excited the curiosity of all Avignon. What did it contain? Two hourslater it was no longer a coffer; but eighteen trunks had been seen goingtoward the Rhone. As for their contents, a porter had revealed that;they contained articles from the Mont-de-Piete that the French partywere taking with them into exile. Articles from the Mont-de-Piete, thatis to say, the spoils of the poor! The poorer the city the richer itspawn-shops. Few could boast such wealth as those of Avignon. It was nolonger a factional affair, it was a theft, an infamous theft. Whitesand Reds rushed to the Church of the Cordeliers, shouting that themunicipality must render them an accounting.
Lescuyer was the secretary of the municipality. His name was thrown tothe crowd, not for having torn down the pontifical decrees--from thatmoment he would have had defenders--but for having signed the order tothe keeper of the Mont-de-Piete permitting the removal of the articlesin pawn.
Four men were sent to seize Lescuyer and bring him to the church. Theyfound him in the street on his way to the municipality. The four menfell upon him and dragged him to the church with the most ferociouscries. Once there, Lescuyer understood from the flaming eyes that methis, from the clinched fists threatening him, the shrieks demanding hisdeath; Lescuyer understood that instead of being in the house of theLord he was in one of those circles of hell forgotten by Dante.
The only idea that occurred to him as to this hatred against him wasthat he had caused it by tearing down the pontifical decrees. He climbedinto the pulpit, expecting to convert it into a seat of justice, and inthe voice of a man who not only does not blame himself, but who is evenready to repeat his action, he said:
"Brothers, I consider the revolution necessary; consequently I have doneall in my power--"
The fanatics understood that if Lescuyer explained, Lescuyer was saved.That was not what they wanted. They flung themselves upon him, tore himfrom the pulpit, and thrust him into the midst of this howling mob, whodragged him to the altar with that sort of terrible cry which combinesthe hiss of the serpent and the roar of the tiger, the murderous zou!zou! peculiar to the people of Avignon.
Lescuyer recognized that fatal cry; he endeavored to gain refuge at thefoot of the altar. He found none; he fell there.
A laborer, armed with a stick, dealt him such a blow on the head thatthe stick broke in two pieces. Then the people hurled themselves uponthe poor body, and, with that mixture of gayety and ferocity peculiar toSouthern people, the men began to dance on his stomach, singing, whilethe women, that he might better expiate his
blasphemies against thePope, cut or rather scalloped his lips with their scissors.
And out of the midst of this frightful group came a cry, or rather agroan; this death groan said: "In the name of Heaven! in the name of theVirgin! in the name of humanity! kill me at once."
This cry was heard, and by common consent the assassins stood aside.They left the unfortunate man bleeding, disfigured, mangled, to taste ofhis death agony.
This lasted five hours, during which, amid shouts of laughter, insults,and jeers from the crowd, this poor body lay palpitating upon the stepsof the altar. That is how they kill at Avignon.
Stay! there is yet another way. A man of the French party conceived theidea of going to the Mont-de-Piete for information. Everything was inorder there, not a fork or a spoon had been removed. It was thereforenot as an accomplice of theft that Lescuyer had just been so cruellymurdered, it was for being a patriot.
There was at that time in Avignon a man who controlled the populace. Allthese terrible leaders of the Midi have acquired such fatal celebritythat it suffices to name them for every one, even the least educated,to know them. This man was Jourdan. Braggart and liar, he had made thecommon people believe that it was he who had cut off the head of thegovernor of the Bastille. So they called him Jourdan, Coupe-tete.That was not his real name, which was Mathieu Jouve. Neither was he aProvencal; he came from Puy-en-Velay. He had formerly been a muleteeron those rugged heights which surround his native town; then a soldierwithout going to war--war had perhaps made him more human; after thathe had kept a drink-shop in Paris. In Avignon he had been a vendor ofmadder.
He collected three hundred men, carried the gates of the town, lefthalf of his troop to guard them, and with the remainder marched uponthe Church of the Cordeliers, preceded by two pieces of cannon. These hestationed in front of the church and fired them into it at random. Theassassins fled like a flock of frightened birds, leaving some few deadupon the church steps. Jourdan and his men trampled over the bodies andentered the holy precincts. No one was there but the Virgin, and thewretched Lescuyer, still breathing. Jourdan and his comrades took goodcare not to despatch Lescuyer; his death agony was a supreme meansof exciting the mob. They picked up this remnant of a sentient being,three-quarters dead, and carried it along, bleeding, quivering, gasping,with them.
Every one fled from the sight, closing doors and windows. At the end ofan hour, Jourdan and his three hundred men were masters of the town.
Lescuyer was dead, but what of that; they no longer needed his agony.Jourdan profited by the terror he had inspired to arrest or havearrested eighty people, murderers, or so-called murderers of Lescuyer.Thirty, perhaps, had never even set foot within the church. But when onehas such a good opportunity to be rid of one's enemies, one must profitby it; good opportunities are rare.
These eighty people were huddled into the Trouillas Tower. Historicallyit is known as the Tower de la Glaciere; but why change this name ofthe Trouillas Tower? The name is unclean and harmonizes well with theunclean deed which was now to be perpetrated there.
It had been the scene of the inquisitorial tortures. One can still seeon the walls the greasy soot which rose from the smoke of the funeralpyre where human bodies were consumed. They still show you to-day theinstruments of torture which they have carefully preserved--the caldron,the oven, the wooden horse, the chains, the dungeons, and even therotten bones. Nothing is wanting.
It was in this tower, built by Clement V., that they now confined theeighty prisoners. These eighty men, once arrested and locked up in theTrouillas Tower, became most embarrassing. Who was to judge them? Therewere no legally constituted courts except those of the Pope. Could theykill these unfortunates as they had killed Lescuyer?
We have said that a third, perhaps half of them, had not only taken nopart in the murder, but had not even set foot in the church. How shouldthey kill them? The killing must be placed upon the basis of reprisals.But the killing of these eighty people required a certain number ofexecutioners.
A species of tribunal was improvised by Jourdan and held session inone of the law-courts. It had a clerk named Raphel; a president, halfItalian, half French; an orator in the popular dialect named BarbeSavournin de la Roua, and three or four other poor devils, a baker, apork butcher--their names are lost in the multitude of events.
These were the men who cried: "We must kill all! If one only escapes hewill be a witness against us."
But, as we have said, executioners were wanting. There were barelytwenty men at hand in the courtyard, all belonging to the pettytradesfolk of Avignon--a barber, a shoemaker, a cobbler, a mason, and anupholsterer--all insufficiently armed at random, the one with a sabre,the other with a bayonet, a third with an iron bar, and a fourth with abit of wood hardened by fire. All of these people were chilled by a fineOctober rain. It would be difficult to turn them into assassins.
Pooh! Is anything too difficult for the devil?
There comes an hour in such crises when God seems to abandon the earth.Then the devil's chance comes.
The devil in person entered this cold, muddy courtyard. Assuming thefeatures, form and face of an apothecary of the neighborhood namedMendes, he prepared a table lighted by two lanterns, on which he placedglasses, jugs, pitchers and bottles.
What infernal beverage did these mysterious and curiously formedreceptacles contain? No one ever knew, but the result is well known.All those who drank that diabolical liquor were suddenly seized with afeverish rage, a lust of blood and murder. From that moment it was onlynecessary to show them the door; they hurtled madly into the dungeon.
The massacre lasted all night; all night the cries, the sobs, thegroans of the dying sounded through the darkness. All were killed, allslaughtered, men and women. It was long in doing; the killers, we havesaid, were drunk and poorly armed. But they succeeded.
Among these butchers was a child remarked for his bestial cruelty, hisimmoderate thirst for blood. It was Lescuyer's son. He killed and thenkilled again; he boasted of having with his childish hand alone killedten men and four women.
"It's all right! I can kill as I like," said he. "I am not yet fifteen,so they can do nothing to me for it."
As the killing progressed, they threw their victims, the living, deadand wounded, into the Trouillas Tower, some sixty feet, down into thepit. The men were thrown in first, and the women later. The assassinswanted time to violate the bodies of those who were young and pretty. Atnine in the morning, after twelve hours of massacre, a voice was stillheard crying from the depths of the sepulchre:
"For pity's sake, come kill me! I cannot die."
A man, the armorer Bouffier, bent over the pit and looked down. Theothers did not dare.
"Who was that crying?" they asked.
"That was Lami," replied Bouffier. Then, when he had returned, theyasked him:
"Well, what did you see at the bottom?"
"A queer marmalade," said he. "Men and women, priests and pretty girls,all helter-skelter. It's enough to make one die of laughter."
"Decidedly man is a vile creature," said the Count of Monte-Cristo to M.de Villefort.
Well, it is in this town, still reeking with blood, still warm, stillstirred by these last massacres, that we now introduce two of theprincipal personages of our story.